Perception and Experience of Transcultural Care of Stakeholders and Health Service Users with a Migrant Background: A Qualitative Study

From a learning opportunity to a conscious multidimensional change: a metasynthesis of transcultural learning experiences among nursing students

BACKGROUND

Several educational activities in nursing schools worldwide have been implemented to promote transcultural nursing and cultural competence. Despite the diversity of their experiences and outcomes, the available evidence has not been systematically reviewed and reinterpreted. This study aimed to review and reinterpret all rigorous qualitative evidence available, providing an opportunity to understand how students learn transcultural nursing and assisting faculties, researchers, managers, and practitioners in designing new interventions to improve transcultural training.

METHODS

A meta-synthesis was conducted to review and integrate qualitative studies of these phenomena. English, Spanish and Portuguese articles were searched in Pubmed and Scopus databases. Only peer-reviewed journals in which qualitative approaches were used were included. Quality was assessed using the CASP qualitative version checklist. The metasynthesis technique proposed by Noblit and Hare was used to analyse the data.

RESULTS

Twenty-nine studies were included in the analysis. Most studies used phenomenological approaches that were conducted in Australia and the United States of America, with international internships being the most popular learning method. The data revealed one central theme, "From learning opportunity to conscious multidimensional change," and six subthemes. The transcultural nursing learning experience is not a simple or linear process. Instead, it appears to be a complex process formed by the interaction between a) self-awareness, b) reflective thinking, c) Cultural Encounters, d) cultural skills, e) Cultural Desire, and f) Cultural Knowledge.

CONCLUSIONS

Transcultural nursing learning is a multifaceted process that arises from specific learning opportunities. This process is still to evolving. Therefore, specific educational strategies should be implemented to encourage attitudinal change and promote reflective thinking.

Unintentional Discrimination Against Patients with a Migration Background by General Practitioners in Mental Health Management: An Experimental Study

Populations with a migration background have a higher prevalence of mental health problems than their native counterparts. They are also more likely to have unmet medical needs and are less frequently referred to mental health services. One potential explanation for this is that physicians, such as general practitioners (GPs), may unintentionally discriminate against migrant patients, particularly when they lack humanization. To date, no experimental study has investigated this hypothesis. This paper assesses the influence of humanization on GPs' discriminatory decisions regarding migrant patients with depression. A balanced 2 × 2 factorial experiment was carried out with Belgian GPs (N = 797) who received video-vignettes depicting either a native patient or a migrant patient with depression. Half of the respondents were exposed to a text that humanized the patient by providing more details about the patient's life story. Decisions related to diagnosis, treatment and referral were collected, as well as the time spent on each video and text, and were analysed using ANOVA. Migrant patients' symptoms were judged to be less severe than those of native patients (F = 7.71, p < 0.05). For almost all treatments, the decision was less favourable for the migrant patient. Humanization had little effect on medical decisions. We observed that GPs spent significantly more time on the vignette with the humanization intervention, especially for the migrant patients. The results indicate that ethnic differences in the management of depression persist in primary care. Humanization, however, does not mitigate those differences in medical decisions.

Spanish adaptation and validation of the Cultural Competence Assessment Tool (CCATool) for undergraduate nursing students

AIM

To analyse and validate a contextually adapted version of the Papadopoulos' Cultural Competence Assessment Tool (CCATool) for Spanish undergraduate nursing students.

BACKGROUND

Globalization has driven and intensified international migration. Thus, nurses must treat patients of many different cultural origins. Accordingly, both cultural competence and an appropriate tool with which to evaluate it are required.

METHODS

The CCATool questionnaire was adapted for use in a Spanish context and was evaluated through a questionnaire completed by 262 undergraduate nursing students. Seven days later, the same students completed the questionnaire, without any intervention, and a subgroup of 144 students completed the questionnaire for a third time after taking a course in Transcultural Care. The reliability, sensitivity and stability of the questionnaire were assessed.

RESULTS

The reliability of the questionnaire obtained an adequate Cronbach's alpha of 0.81. Stability was assessed at seven days, using the intraclass correlation coefficient, which showed good/excellent results. Moreover, the questionnaire was able to detect the changes related to the nursing educative programme, thus highlighting a good sensitivity of the tool.

CONCLUSION

Cultural competence is an essential element of nurses' education, and instruction in this area should begin as soon as possible. In addition, an appropriate evaluation system is required. For this purpose, the present study describes and analyses a valid, reliable tool for use with undergraduate nursing students in Spain.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING AND HEALTH POLICY

Health and education policies must be sensitive to the ethnic and cultural differences of the patients who are cared for, and address the situations that cause difficulties in care. Hospitals and health centres must offer good care to patients from diverse cultures, so one of the necessary situations is the training and evaluation of the cultural competence of health professionals.

Health service behaviors of migrants: A conceptual framework

Universal health coverage is vital to the World Health Organization's (WHO's) efforts to ensure access to health as a human right. However, it has been reported that migrants, including both international immigrants and internal migrants, underuse health services. Establishing a conceptual framework to facilitate research on the health service behaviors (HSB) of migrants is particularly important. Many theoretical frameworks explaining the general population's HSB have been published; however, most theoretical frameworks on migrants' HSB only focus on international immigrants without the inclusion of internal migrants. Of note, internal migrants are much more abundant than immigrants, and this group faces similar barriers to HSB as immigrants do. Based on theoretical frameworks of immigrants' HSB and Anderson's behavior model, the author proposes a new conceptual framework of migrants' HSB that includes both immigrants and internal migrants. The new conceptual framework divides the determinants into macro-structural or contextual factors, health delivery system characteristics, and characteristics of the population at risk and describes subgroup-specific factors. The author added some variables and reclassified variables in some dimensions, including characteristics of health delivery systems and access to healthcare. The characteristics of health delivery systems comprise the volume, organization, quality, and cost of the health delivery system, while the characteristics of access to healthcare include time accessibility, geographic accessibility, and information accessibility. The outcomes of HSB have been expanded, and relationships between them have been reported. The mediating effects of some variables have also been described. This conceptual framework can facilitate a deep and comprehensive understanding of the HSB determination process for migrants, including internal migrants.