{"doi":"10.31219/osf.io/vhjtd","title":"Emergency Department Patient-Centered Care Perspectives from Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Patients","abstract":"Background. Deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) patients are a priority population for emergency medicine health services research. DHH patients are at higher risk than non-DHH patients of using the emergency department (ED), have longer lengths of stay in the ED, and report poor patient-provider communication. This qualitative study aimed to describe ED care-seeking and patient-centered care perspectives among DHH patients. Methods. This qualitative study is the second phase of a mixed methods study. The goal of this study was to further explain quantitative findings related to ED outcomes among DHH and non-DHH patients. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 4 DHH ASL-users, and 6 DHH English-speakers from North Central Florida. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed using a descriptive qualitative approach. Results. Two themes were developed: (1) DHH patients engage in a complex decision-making process to determine ED utilization and (2) patient-centered ED care differs between DHH ASL-users and DHH English-speakers. The first theme describes the social-behavioral processes through which DHH patients assess their need to use the ED. The second theme focuses on the social environment within the ED: patients feeling stereotyped, involvement in the care process, pain communication, receipt of accommodations, and discharge processes. Conclusions. This study underscores the importance of better understanding, and intervening in, DHH patient ED care-seeking and care delivery to improve patient outcomes. Like other studies, this study also finds that DHH patients are not a monolithic group and language status is an equity-relevant indicator. We also discuss recommendations for emergency medicine.","journal":"OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints)","year":2023,"id":408436,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9568,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":756987,"name":"Meagan K. Sullivan","orcid":"0009-0006-1097-5989","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":500525,"name":"Michael McKee","orcid":"0000-0002-5561-9885","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1080606,"name":"Jason Rotoli","orcid":"0000-0002-1251-4469","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1081205,"name":"David Maruca","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1081206,"name":"Rosemarie Stachowiak","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":754929,"name":"JeeWon Cheong","orcid":"0000-0001-6033-7180","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":888452,"name":"Julia R. Varnes","orcid":"0000-0002-2356-8761","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":756986,"name":"Tyler G. James","orcid":"0000-0002-0694-4702","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":58,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:21:18.414003Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}