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Sets out to report on an exploratory study in which perspectives on cross‐cultural counselling in mental health care in Auckland, New Zealand, are to be examined.

The study utilised a single questionnaire which sought mental health professionals' perceptions on issues and concepts of cross‐cultural counselling. The questionnaire was administered in the nine public psychiatric units in Auckland.

Apart from the health units providing bicultural (European and Maori) counselling services, there was little cross‐cultural counselling available to an increasingly multicultural community.

With regard to the need for cross‐cultural counselling, rather than address the issue of population change this study examines the effect that lack of diversity would have on the gains that would otherwise be made in the health‐care system of Auckland, New Zealand.

This commentary argues in favor of international research in the 21st century. Advances in technology, science, communication, transport, and infrastructure have transformed the world into a global village. Industries have increasingly adopted globalization strategies. Likewise, the health sector is more internationalized whereby comparisons between diverse health systems, international best practices, international benchmarking, cross-border health care, and cross-cultural issues have become important subjects in the health care literature. The focus has now turned to international, collaborative, cross-national, and cross-cultural research, which is by far more demanding than domestic studies. In this commentary, we explore the methodological challenges, ethical issues, pitfalls, and practicalities within international research and offer possible solutions to address them.

The commentary synthesizes contributions from four scholars in the field of health care management, who came together during the annual meeting of the Academy of Management to discuss with members of the Health Care Management Division the challenges of international research.

International research is worth pursuing; however, it calls for scholarly attention to key methodological and ethical issues for its success.

This commentary addresses salient issues pertaining to international research in one comprehensive account.

An urban mental health service undertook a quality improvement programme to involve staff in the identification and resolution of cross‐cultural issues. The programme involved clinical file audits, staff survey and workshops, and a focus group for consumers and their carers. It was found that non‐English speaking patients received a different spectrum of services from English speaking patients. Non‐English speaking patients were found to receive more pharmacological treatments and less cognitive behavioural therapy. In seeking to address these issues and improve their service delivery to all patients, the mental health service is now in the process of developing cross‐cultural training; revising policies and procedures; and engaging bilingual mental health counsellors in a revision of their roles, particularly to increase their availability to staff as cultural consultants.

Social structural and cultural theories suggest that social stress induced from socio‐cultural status patterns varies across the world's cultures. The purpose of the study is to compare subjective social stress in connection with objective socio‐cultural status patterns among Muslim, Hindu, Santal and Oraon communities in Rasulpur of Bangladesh.

This study was conducted in Rasulpur, Bangladesh. Preliminarily, 760 male arrack drinkers who were stressful in their socio‐cultural status patterns were selected by snowball process from the study area. Of the respondents, 391 arrack drinkers (109 Muslim, 103 Hindu, 89 Santal and 90 Oraon) were intensively interviewed by semi‐structural questionnaire to examine and compare the research purpose.

The results of Pearson's χ² test suggested that there were significant differences (p<0.01) in subjective social stress in connection with socio‐cultural status patterns, except income among the communities, among the ethnic communities. The results of Spearman bivariate correlation coefficients revealed that there were significant relationships (p<0.01 and p<0.05) between socio‐cultural status patterns and its social stress, except occupation and income among the communities studied.

Although the findings of the study have been successful in understanding differences in social stress in the context of socio‐cultural status patterns among the Muslim, Hindu, Santal and Oraon communities in Rasulpur, Bangladesh, further empirical research is needed on how personality factor, familial and community coping and social support from social service system influence the differences in subjective social stress associated with socio‐cultural status patterns among the communities. In spite of the limitations, the findings may provide valuable information for cross‐cultural social health policy and programs to manage the problem.

This paper is original in linking its theory, policy and practice to reduce subjective social stress in the context of socio‐cultural variations among the Muslim, Hindu, Santal and Oraon communities in Bangladesh.

Health monitoring of the migrant population in most European countries shows that migrants have a lower standard of health conditions than the resident population. One of the problems is that the interaction between migrants and general practitioners (GPs) is not optimal. Most of the migrants are not able to fully understand the GP’s advice or instructions. GPs report that they are not adequately supported by health institutions, and they are asking for new solutions. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to conduct a systematic review to find existing international approaches to improve the interaction between GPs and their migrant patients.

The literature search identified 2,387 articles, 36 of which met the full inclusion criteria. In total, 12 of the included studies referenced approaches for improving GPs’ communication skills. Seven articles described solutions for a better understanding of cultural differences, and six articles listed approaches to health education for GPs. One article highlighted how health information can improve the interaction between GPs and migrants, and four articles detailed new technologies that could improve and enhance quality of care. The last six articles included good practice strategies described by GPs.

This paper provides an overview of international approaches from the viewpoint of GPs. It concludes that there is no single instrument or method that works in all situations. There are, however, a wide range of approaches available that could lead to substantial improvements in the quality of care for the migrant population.

Different health systems in the reviewed countries and changing roles of GPs must be taken into consideration when making statements about successful approaches. Migrants have different backgrounds and cannot all be categorized as one and the same group of patients. Another limitation of the review concerns the evidence level of the articles included, since most of the studies do not reach high level of evidence. In addition, there is a need to analyze aspects of the relationship between GPs and the migrant population that have been neglected up to now, such as financial issues, patients’ expectations, or lack of trust.

This paper provides an overview of international approaches from the viewpoint of GPs.

New Zealand is a country of many cultures and ethnicities. With a growing Asian community, cultural capability of the mental health workforce is essential to ensure that Asians have equity in access to appropriate and high quality services. Literature indicates a growing need to develop resources and enhance knowledge on cultural competence to assist health service providers to address the needs of people from diverse backgrounds. Yet, at what stage of training and/or practice are health professionals gaining access to this knowledge?Consultation with local health services and tertiary education institutions revealed a gap in the knowledge of Asian mental health being taught in the curriculum of students undertaking training to become health professionals. Further research indicated a need and desire from tertiary institutions to have access to Asian mental health material for both enhancing students' learning, and promoting the concept of continuing education following graduation. As a result, an interactive, self‐administrative CD‐rom comprising three modules: self‐reflection; Asian philosophies; and clinical issues was compiled.Early feedback indicates that the CD‐rom has tremendous potential in terms of applicability to enhancing current curriculum and for teaching students skills such as accessing articles and web based resources, valuable for the purposes of continuing education. Continuing education with regards to cultural competence is not just for qualified health professionals but needs to be integrated as part of students training as health practitioners, in order to ensure health care providers are able to provide effective and culturally responsive services.

Normal aging changes, acute and chronic illness, and the long stay in the hospital made the decline in elderly physical and mental abilities in non-instrumental and Instrumental Activities Daily Livings (IADL). This paper aims to determine the validity and reliability of Lawton IADL in the Iranian elderly community relevancy to physical, mental and cognitive measurements.

A cross-sectional study with 422 participants, age 60 years old and over selected by face-to-face interviewing from the geriatric clinic, Tehran medical university from January to June 2019.

Of 422 participants referring to outpatient clinics the majority were male (62.8%); with an average of 66.9 ± 5.95 years old. Reliability was significantly high (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.96, p < 0.001). There was a significant relationship between IADL with Short-Form Health Survey36-Mental Component Score (SF36-MCS), with p < 0.01. Reliability was significantly high (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.96, p < 0.001). In the factor analysis with eigenvalues more than one, two components were found; that the first factor named as observational daily activities, whereas the second factor named “advanced daily activities”.

The limitation of this study was the low number of similar studies to compare the results and the stronger discussion.

Determining IADL's dependency in the community elderly is important to maintain their self-care manages. More studies are needed to manifest the relationship between mental health and IADL's independence. Therefore, validation in different settings is important in planning for the geriatrics team.

Latinos comprise 12.5 percent of the overall population in the USA, and are the fastest‐growing minority, among which the Mexican‐origin population makes up about 66 percent. Undocumented Latino immigrants are a small, yet important group within the immigrant population. The purpose of this paper is to review the literature and discuss the most important factors that prevent immigrants from accessing health care.

Literature review was conducted from the library database. A total of 50 items of literature related to the subject were reviewed.

Border states have the highest concentration of Mexican‐origin people. The concentration of immigrants in the border has unique health and economic implications due to the vital role they have in US society, contributing both to the economy and diversity of the USA. Despite their important role, they disproportionately lack health insurance, and receive fewer health care services than US‐born citizens. This lack of insurance puts a burden on the nation's economy, and their health status deteriorates as they become more prone to chronic health conditions, and their complications due to lack of primary medical attention.

Tailored public health interventions that address the health needs of Latino immigrants in the USA need to be based on reliable data and statistics in order to effectively place resources, and to track achievements and flaws.

This study aims to examine the content of health promotional web sites in two culturally distinct countries, the USA and South Korea, by investigating the level of interactivity and types of advertising appeals presented on antismoking web sites.

Antismoking web sites in the two countries were collected through the three major search engines (msn, Yahoo and Google) using relevant keywords. The final sample contained a total of 89 web sites (USA=67, South Korea=22) that met the condition of promoting antismoking behavior rather than just selling antismoking products. Three bilingual coders were hired for the analysis.

The South Korean antismoking web sites presented significantly higher levels of interactivity than their USA counterparts. By contrast, there is hardly any differentiation between the two countries in the amount of advertising appeals used on the health web sites.

Even though antismoking is certainly an important global issue, the findings related to antismoking web sites may not be generalizable to various other health‐related topics. Future research should replicate our findings on interactivity and advertising appeals in the context of various health issues.

To cross‐cultural researchers, the results provide more theoretical and practical rationales for cross‐cultural differences beyond such well‐known typologies as Hofstede's Individualism/Collectivism and Hall's high‐low context.

This study provided at least two useful findings for practitioners and researchers: better definition of the roles of cultural differences in the level of interactivity and the types of advertising appeals in promoting health information online and a broadening of the scope of cross‐cultural advertising research to health promotional contexts online.

Migration is increasing worldwide. health care practitioners must provide care to migrants in a culturally competent manner that is sensitive to cultural, political and economic contexts shaping health and illness. Many studies have provided strong evidence that health providers benefit from training in cross-cultural care. Cultural competence education of medical students during their early learning can begin to address attitudes and responsiveness toward refugees. At Memorial University in Canada, the authors designed “Morning in Refugee Health”, an innovative program in cultural competency training for first year medical students in the Clinical Skills and Ethics course. The purpose of this paper is to discuss these issues.

Here the authors introduce the curriculum and provide the rationale for the specific pedagogical techniques employed, emphasizing the consideration of culture in its relation to political and economic contexts. The authors describe the innovation of training standardized patients (SPs) who are themselves immigrants or refugees. The authors explain how and why the collaboration of community agencies and medical school administration is key to the successful implementation of such a curriculum.

Medical students benefit from early pre-clinical education in refugee health. Specific attention to community context, SP training, small group format, linkages between clinical skills and medical ethics, medical school administrative and community agency support are essential to development and delivery of this curriculum. As a result of the Morning in Refugee Health, students initiated a community medical outreach project for newly arriving refugees.

The approach is unique in three ways: integration of training in clinical skills and ethics; training of SPs who are themselves immigrants or refugees; and reflection on the political, economic and cultural contexts shaping health and health care.