10. Health And Wellness

Principle

Healthcare interpreters maintain and restore their overall physical, emotional, mental, and social well-being.

Objective

To support the interpreter’s well-being and their ability to continue providing quality healthcare interpreter services.

Description

Healthcare interpreters are frequently exposed to various types of trauma, including secondary traumatic stress, vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, ethical stress, burnout, acute stress reactions, and cumulative stress.1

These stressful experiences often trigger strong feelings, without time or opportunities to process them. Current research indicates that repeated exposure to difficult situations leads to compassion fatigue, emotional distress, and burnout.2,3,4 Self-care is an essential practice which allows interpreters to continue providing quality interpreting services.5

Standards of Practice

10.1 Recognize the importance of self-care and take proactive steps to maintain our physical, psychological and emotional well-being. 10.2 Collaborate with employers and colleagues to develop programs and activities that support our health and well-being and that help mitigate various types of trauma. 10.3 Recognize and develop effective coping strategies for our triggers, which may include exposure to distressing medical procedures, patient histories, or ethically challenging situations.

  1. Physical signs of strong emotions may include heart pounding, face flushing, jaw clenching, eyes tearing, throat tightening. ↩︎

  2. Chen T. The interplay between psychological well-being, stress, and burnout: Implications for translators and interpreters. Heliyon. 2023 Jul 22;9(8):e18589. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e18589. PMID: 37554771; PMCID: PMC10404948. ↩︎

  3. Kirby E, Broom A, Good P, Bowden V, Lwin Z. Experiences of interpreters in supporting the transition from oncology to palliative care: A qualitative study. Asia Pac J Clin Oncol. 2017 Oct;13(5):e497-e505. doi: 10.1111/ajco.12563. Epub 2016 Jul 20. PMID: 27435829. ↩︎

  4. Global Workforce Survey of Healthcare Interpreters - CCHI, The Executive Summary of the Report, 2025 ↩︎

  5. Hancox JA, McKiernan CF, Martin AL, Tomas J, MacArtney JI. The emotional effects on professional interpreters of interpreting palliative care conversations or adult patients: A rapid review. Palliat Med. 2023 Jul;37(7):931-946. doi: 10.1177/02692163231169318. Epub 2023 Apr 24. PMID: 37092434; PMCID: PMC10320707. ↩︎