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The purpose of this paper is to examine the barriers and facilitators to health and social service access and utilization for immigrant parents raising a child with a physical disability, in order to understand their specific needs and experiences of care.

The research involves qualitative interviews with five immigrant parents of four children with a physical disability in two cities in Ontario, Canada.

The findings indicate that divergent perceptions of health care and disability, language, knowledge of service systems, and finances may create obstacles to family-centered and culturally sensitive care. Formal supports, including a third person to navigate the system and services provided in families’ homes, are facilitators that enhance the service care experiences of parents.

Service providers need to accommodate and work with immigrant parents who have a child with a disability to overcome the barriers to their care. To enhance service experiences formal support and home services should be provided when possible.

There is little research on immigrant families’ experiences with pediatric rehabilitation services and this study contributes to this area. This paper shows that immigrant families of children with disabilities have barriers to service access, utilization, and service care experiences that are similar to those of non-immigrant families. There are few studies on facilitators to service access and utilization and positive experiences; therefore, this study makes a contribution to this area.

There is a recognition in Europe and in the western world of a demographic shift in the ageing population. While the overall ageing of the general population is growing, the numbers of immigrants getting old in their host countries is also increasing, thereby increasing the racial and ethnic proportion of older people in these countries. This changing landscape calls for understanding of issues related to health care provision, policy and research regarding ethnic minorities. Communication is seen as a key factor in understanding the needs of ethnic minority elders (EMEs). The purpose of this paper is to explore health care workers’ (HCWs) perceptions and experiences of communication with EMEs. In this paper the term HCW includes qualified nurses and health care assistants.

A descriptive qualitative study design using semi-structured interviews was employed. Ten HCWs, who had ethnic minorities in their care were individually interviewed to explore their perceptions and experiences of communication when caring for EMEs.

Analysis of data revealed that in common with all older people, EMEs experience stereotyped attitudes and difficulties in communication. However, EMEs face particular challenges, including cultural differences, different language and stereotyping of care based on misunderstood needs of EMEs. Facilitators of communication included appropriate training of HCWs and appropriate use of interpreters.

Only homes willing to take part in the study gave permission for their staff to be interviewed. In addition, the HCWs came from various settings. Therefore, views of staff in homes who did not give permission may not be represented.

The diversity of older people needing care in nursing homes and the community calls for training in culturally competent communication for effective provision care provision for EMEs.

Training of health care staff in culturally appropriate communication requires effective practice.

This chapter reviews conceptualizations of parent involvement and family engagement as they aim to support children’s learning and development and introduces the reader to relational family engagement, a new approach to engaging families in their children’s early learning. Relational family engagement is discussed as central to effectively engaging culturally and linguistically diverse families as active contributors to their children’s lifelong success as learners. The authors delineate three principles fundamental to relational family engagement, supported by an interdisciplinary review of research. Reflective practice is explored as a pathway to relational family engagement. The authors assert that the integration of reflective practice holds promise as a way to facilitate and deepen relationships among staff in early childhood programs, between the early childhood education program staff and families, and between families and children, such that children’s early learning experiences are enhanced across both home and preschool contexts while drawing upon their families’ cultural and linguistic assets.

This exploratory study aims to examine female Muslim immigrant patients’ expectations of physicians’ religious competence during clinical interactions.

In total, 101 female Muslim immigrants in Ottawa, Canada, completed an eight-item survey measuring patients’ expectations of physicians’ religious competence during clinical communication.

Results from the independent samples t-tests and one-way ANOVA suggested that female Muslim immigrant patients in this study expected their doctors to be aware of Islam as a religion and be sensitive to their religious needs, especially food/dietary practices during clinical communication. Although the participants did not differ in their expectations of physicians’ religious competence based on age, educational level, employment status and income level, they differed based on their frequencies of visiting doctors and their ethnic/cultural origin.

This study fills a gap in the literature by advancing understanding of religious competence during clinical interactions from female Muslim immigrant patients’ perspective. The findings can contribute to developing religiously competent and accessible health-care services for religiously diverse populations.

Health care professionals (HCPs) face numerous barriers in providing services to limited English proficient (LEP) patients and their families. The purpose of this paper is to explore and expand on the limited scholarship concerning HCPs’ experiences using children as informal interpreters in pediatric consultations.

Ten HCPs from five different fields participated in this study. They were interviewed over the phone and replied to follow-up correspondence about their knowledge on policies for communicating with LEP patients and/or their families when providing medical care.

Using a thematic analysis five themes emerged across all cases: cultural awareness, communication quality, live interpreters as a solution, use of child language brokers (CLBs), and the norm of child language brokering. Through the development of the aforementioned themes, HCPs’ limited awareness of implications when using CLBs and of the established policies related to this phenomenon were apparent.

This lack of knowledge, acknowledged by HCPs, provides a platform from which to create awareness of the need for further education about the potential risks CLBs face when interpreting medical information and of the negative impact this process can have on the overall medical outcome of a patient. Furthermore, it allows the authors to address the ignorance within the health care system that has allowed vulnerabilities to LEP individuals being treated in health care facilities.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the salient barriers in the uptake and effective utilization of health promotion interventions among ethnocultural minority older adults (EMOA).

The paper opted for a literature review of 25 sources (peer-reviewed articles as well as documents from the grey literature). The search was primarily conducted in a database developed during a scoping review on the health and health care access and utilization of EMOA. Emphasis was placed on older ethnocultural minorities in Canada; however examples from the UK (which has a comparable health care system) and the USA and Australia (which have large, ethnically diverse populations) were also selected. The Candidacy framework was used as an analytical lens in the review.

Findings indicate that health promotion needs to be understood as comprehensive care, involving not only the provision of health care services, but also knowledge dissemination and the facilitation of access to these services. Limited health literacy, low levels of self-efficacy and autonomy, and diverse life course experiences, particularly in the case of immigrant older adults, give rise to issues around the identification of need and system navigation. Cultural beliefs on health and illness, particularly around diet and exercise, and a lack of trust in formal systems of health care, are barriers to the uptake of interventions. Similarly, service permeability is low when cultural competency is lacking.

The recommendations include the need for collaborative engagement with stakeholders, including family, peers, community partners and health practitioners, and the development of concise, culturally, and linguistically appropriate tools of health promotion that are targeted toward the intersecting needs of individuals in this diverse population of older adults.

Given the increasingly diverse nature of the older adult population in Canada over the past four decades, this paper makes an important contribution toward understanding the social, cultural, structural, biographical, and geographical factors that may optimize the effective dissemination and uptake of health promotion interventions among EMOA.

This research paper aims to delve into the perceptions of health susceptibility among Iranian, Afghan and Tajik individuals hailing from asylum-seeking or refused asylum-seeking backgrounds currently residing in Finland, Norway and Sweden.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted between May and October 2022 involving a sample size of 27 participants. An adapted framework based on the health belief model along with previous studies served as a guide for formulating interview questions.

Notably influenced by cultural background, religious beliefs, psychological states and past traumatic experiences during migration journeys – before arrival in these countries till settling down – subjects’ perception of health concerns emerged significantly shaped. Additionally impacting perspectives were social standing, occupational status, personal/family medical history, lifestyle choices and dietary preferences nurtured over time, leading to varying degrees of influence upon individuals’ interpretation about their own wellness or illness.

Insights garnered throughout the authors’ analysis hold paramount significance when it comes to developing targeted strategies catering culturally sensitive health-care provisions, alongside framing policies better aligned with primary care services tailored explicitly around singular demands posed by these specific communities dwelling within respective territories.

This investigation represents one among few pioneering initiatives assessing perceptions regarding both physical and mental well-being within minority groups under examination across Nordic nations, unveiling complexities arising through intersecting factors like individual attributes mingling intricately with socio-cultural environments, thereby forming unique viewpoints towards health-care belief systems prevalent among such population segments.

Research into the housing and support needs of Irish people in London suggests that in future years need is more likely to be concentrated among older members of the community than new arrivals. This could have important consequences for the future plans of organisations providing housing and support for this community; there is likely to be a need for more housing for older people and those with special needs such as alcohol use, along with provision of culturally sensitive support. The research was carried out in London, but other areas with Irish communities may be experiencing similar changes.

Although the need for cultural competence in clinical care has been well articulated for over four decades, the goal of integrating and addressing cultural issues in care remains elusive. The challenges can be attributed to a lack of clarity on definitions and a lack of understanding of what constitutes cultural competence. What to know and what to do are questions that are frequently raised in discussions of cultural competence. Previous literature has described cultural competence in terms of affective, behavioural, and cognitive domains. The purpose of this paper is to build on this discourse by discussing key attributes within each domain and extending the framework to highlight the dynamics of difference, clarify the goal of equity, and recognise the importance of practice environments in the development of cultural competence in clinical care.

Roma form the largest ethnic group in Europe. Currently, between 10 and 12 million Roma live in Europe, 6 million of which live in the European Union.

In this chapter, the authors analyze the socioeconomic and health problems faced by the Roma population, their causes and the barriers to Roma access to adequate medical care.

Roma population is generally younger than the general population, but with a lower life expectancy, due to poor living conditions and the increased prevalence of chronic and acute diseases. There are numerous barriers to accessing medical services by the Roma patients, such as language, low education, lack of information, discrimination in medical institutions, lack of medical insurance or identity documents and the relationship with medical staff.

Health mediators represent the link between communities and medical staff, with the role of reducing the negative consequences of the language barrier, sociocultural differences and tensions between ethnic groups.

The authors also present the results of a study conducted in Romania that aimed to analyze the role of health mediators as intercultural facilitators who contribute to increasing the quality of medical care provided to Roma patients and their ability to respond culturally appropriate to the health needs of the Roma patients.

The authors conclude that the medical staff has an ethical obligation to provide culturally sensitive medical care, since the ethnic origin, the level of education, the language proficiency and the cultural values of the patients are essential for a functional doctor–patient relationship. The activity of the health mediators is an important element in the health policies aimed at increasing the cultural competence of the medical staff and improving the medical care provided to the Roma population.