The objective of the study was to determine if a patient and physician speaking the same language, also known as language concordance, leads to greater medication compliance, specifically among Spanish-speaking patients with diabetes, and if language concordance between the two leads to fewer hospitalizations among those patients with diabetes. Secondary data analysis was performed using the 2009 California Health Interview Survey. From the entire sample population, there were 395 adults who met the appropriate criteria for the study.

Analysis results reveal no association was found between Spanish-speaking patients with diabetes and difficulty understanding their doctor; therefore, it was not possible to test the remaining hypothesis. Future research should not be limited to one data set, but rather explore health care systems serving large numbers of Spanish-speaking patients to get a clearer picture on the implication of and increased health care utilizations due to doctors and patients not speaking the same language.