• Dalia Magaña.
• Department of Literature, Languages & Cultures, School of Social Sciences, Humanities & Arts, University of California, Merced, 5200 N. Lake Road, Merced, CA 95343, USA. Electronic address: dmagana6@ucmerced.edu.
• Patient Educ Couns. 2019 Dec 1; 102 (12): 2192-2198.

ObjectivesThe aim of this study is to understand how Spanish-speaking patients conceptualize mental health issues. This study uses a linguistic perspective to focus on how 23 Mexican-origin patients and their doctor talk about mental health during psychiatric interviews conducted in Spanish and how they negotiate cultural barriers.MethodsThis work analyzes when the doctor and his patients reference metaphors (e.g. feeling "empty," feeling "low"). Metaphors are pervasive in all cultures and languages and reveal important information about people's attitudes and feelings about a range of conditions and circumstances.ResultsThis work demonstrates the role of metaphor and linguistic analysis in uncovering culturally based constructions of mental health. The results reveal that the doctor and patients reference different sets of metaphors, which, at times, causes miscommunication.ConclusionsPractitioner awareness of how patients use metaphorical expressions in health is crucial for promoting advanced cultural and linguistic competence and ultimately, patient-centered care.Practice ImplicationsThe main findings have implications for health communication with minority groups such as Spanish-speaking Latinos/as in the United States. Practitioners working with Spanish-speaking patients should be familiar with how Latinos/as conceptualize health and how to avoid or repair confusion caused by cultural barriers.Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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