IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v18y2021i4p1469-d493155.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Communication Experiences in Primary Healthcare with Refugees and Asylum Seekers: A Literature Review and Narrative Synthesis

Author

Listed:
  • Pinika Patel

    (Sydney School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
    Ask Share Know: Rapid Evidence for General Practice Decisions (ASK-GP), Centre for Research Excellence, Sydney School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia)

  • Sarah Bernays

    (Sydney School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
    Department of Global Health and Development, Faculty of Public Health and Policy, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London WCIE 7HT, UK)

  • Hankiz Dolan

    (Sydney School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
    Ask Share Know: Rapid Evidence for General Practice Decisions (ASK-GP), Centre for Research Excellence, Sydney School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia)

  • Danielle Marie Muscat

    (Ask Share Know: Rapid Evidence for General Practice Decisions (ASK-GP), Centre for Research Excellence, Sydney School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
    Sydney Health Literacy Lab, Sydney School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia)

  • Lyndal Trevena

    (Sydney School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
    Ask Share Know: Rapid Evidence for General Practice Decisions (ASK-GP), Centre for Research Excellence, Sydney School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia)

Abstract

Refugee and asylum seeker population numbers are rising in Western countries. Understanding the communication experiences, within healthcare encounters, for this population is important for providing better care and health outcomes. This review summarizes the literature on health consultation communication experiences of refugees and asylum seekers living in Western countries. Seven electronic databases were searched from inception to 31 March 2019. Studies were included if they aimed to improve, assess or report on communication/interaction in the primary health care consultation setting with refugees or asylum seekers, and were conducted in Western countries. A narrative synthesis of the literature was undertaken. Thematic analysis of the 21 included articles, showed that refugees and asylum seekers experience a range of communication challenges and obstacles in primary care consultations. This included practical and relational challenges of organizing and using informal and formal interpreters and cultural understanding of illness and healthcare. Non-verbal and compassionate care aspects of communication emerged as an important factor in helping improve comfort and trust between healthcare providers (HCP) and refugees and asylum seekers during a healthcare encounter. Improvements at the systems level are needed to provide better access to professional interpreters, but also support compassionate and humanistic care by creating time for HCPs to build relationships and trust with patients.

Suggested Citation

  • Pinika Patel & Sarah Bernays & Hankiz Dolan & Danielle Marie Muscat & Lyndal Trevena, 2021. "Communication Experiences in Primary Healthcare with Refugees and Asylum Seekers: A Literature Review and Narrative Synthesis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(4), pages 1-18, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:4:p:1469-:d:493155
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/4/1469/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/4/1469/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Epstein, Ronald M. & Franks, Peter & Fiscella, Kevin & Shields, Cleveland G. & Meldrum, Sean C. & Kravitz, Richard L. & Duberstein, Paul R., 2005. "Measuring patient-centered communication in Patient-Physician consultations: Theoretical and practical issues," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 61(7), pages 1516-1528, October.
    2. Ong, L. M. L. & de Haes, J. C. J. M. & Hoos, A. M. & Lammes, F. B., 1995. "Doctor-patient communication: A review of the literature," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 40(7), pages 903-918, April.
    3. MacFarlane, Anne & Dzebisova, Zhanna & Karapish, Dmitri & Kovacevic, Bosiljka & Ogbebor, Florence & Okonkwo, Ekaterina, 2009. "Arranging and negotiating the use of informal interpreters in general practice consultations: Experiences of refugees and asylum seekers in the west of Ireland," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 210-214, July.
    4. Wensing, Michel & Jung, Hans Peter & Mainz, Jan & Olesen, Frede & Grol, Richard, 1998. "A systematic review of the literature on patient priorities for general practice care. Part 1: Description of the research domain," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 47(10), pages 1573-1588, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bianca Della Rocca & Rosaria Bello & Marco Carbone & Pasquale Pezzella & Claudia Toni & Gaia Sampogna & Lorenzo Tarsitani & Mario Luciano & Andrea Fiorillo, 2024. "Promoting mental health and preventing mental health problems in child and adolescent refugees and asylum seekers: A systematic review on psychosocial interventions," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 70(4), pages 653-666, June.
    2. Lillian Mwanri & Nelsensius Klau Fauk & William Mude & Hailay Abrha Gesesew, 2022. "Migration, Resilience, Vulnerability and Migrants’ Health," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(18), pages 1-2, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Vrana, Scott R. & Vrana, Dylan T. & Penner, Louis A. & Eggly, Susan & Slatcher, Richard B. & Hagiwara, Nao, 2018. "Latent Semantic Analysis: A new measure of patient-physician communication," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 198(C), pages 22-26.
    2. Meron Hirpa & Tinsay Woreta & Hilena Addis & Sosena Kebede, 2020. "What matters to patients? A timely question for value-based care," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(7), pages 1-16, July.
    3. Hyojung Tak & Gregory Ruhnke & Ya-Chen Shih, 2015. "The Association between Patient-Centered Attributes of Care and Patient Satisfaction," The Patient: Patient-Centered Outcomes Research, Springer;International Academy of Health Preference Research, vol. 8(2), pages 187-197, April.
    4. Miller, Nancy & Weinstein, Marcie, 2007. "Participation and knowledge related to a nursing home admission decision among a working age population," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 303-313, January.
    5. Beach, Wayne A. & Easter, David W. & Good, Jeffrey S. & Pigeron, Elisa, 2005. "Disclosing and responding to cancer "fears" during oncology interviews," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 60(4), pages 893-910, February.
    6. Sheng-Yu Fan & Jyh-Gang Hsieh, 2020. "The Experience of Do-Not-Resuscitate Orders and End-of-Life Care Discussions among Physicians," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(18), pages 1-10, September.
    7. Blume, Andreas, 2018. "Failure of common knowledge of language in common-interest communication games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 132-155.
    8. Chen, Yi & Ding, Shuai & Zheng, Handong & Zhang, Youtao & Yang, Shanlin, 2018. "Exploring diffusion strategies for mHealth promotion using evolutionary game model," Applied Mathematics and Computation, Elsevier, vol. 336(C), pages 148-161.
    9. Lee, Yin-Yang & Lin, Julia L., 2010. "Do patient autonomy preferences matter? Linking patient-centered care to patient-physician relationships and health outcomes," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(10), pages 1811-1818, November.
    10. Ashill, Nicholas J. & Rod, Michel, 2011. "Burnout processes in non-clinical health service encounters," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 64(10), pages 1116-1127, October.
    11. Rhona Hogg & Janet Hanley & Pam Smith, 2018. "Learning lessons from the analysis of patient complaints relating to staff attitudes, behaviour and communication, using the concept of emotional labour," Journal of Clinical Nursing, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(5-6), pages 1004-1012, March.
    12. Solomon, Josie & Knapp, Peter & Raynor, D.K. & Atkin, Karl, 2013. "Worlds apart? An exploration of prescribing and medicine-taking decisions by patients, GPs and local policy makers," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 112(3), pages 264-272.
    13. Ishikawa, Hirono & Hashimoto, Hideki & Kiuchi, Takahiro, 2013. "The evolving concept of “patient-centeredness” in patient–physician communication research," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 147-153.
    14. Roscigno, Cecelia I. & Savage, Teresa A. & Grant, Gerald & Philipsen, Gerry, 2013. "How healthcare provider talk with parents of children following severe traumatic brain injury is perceived in early acute care," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 32-39.
    15. Jiaqi Chen & Song Xu & Jing Gao, 2020. "The Mixed Effect of China’s New Health Care Reform on Health Insurance Coverage and the Efficiency of Health Service Utilisation: A Longitudinal Approach," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(5), pages 1-13, March.
    16. Liu, Xiaoxiao & Ben Liu, Qianqian, 2024. "Superior medical resources or geographic proximity? The joint effects of regional medical resource disparity, geographic distance, and cultural differences on online medical consultation," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 350(C).
    17. Udo Schneider, 2002. "Beidseitige Informationsasymmetrien in der Arzt-Patient-Beziehung: Implikationen für die GKV," Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung / Quarterly Journal of Economic Research, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 71(4), pages 447-458.
    18. Mélanie Sustersic & Aurélie Gauchet & Anaïs Kernou & Charlotte Gibert & Alison Foote & Céline Vermorel & Jean-Luc Bosson, 2018. "A scale assessing doctor-patient communication in a context of acute conditions based on a systematic review," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(2), pages 1-16, February.
    19. Archontissa Maria Kanavaki & Courtney Jane Lightfoot & Jared Palmer & Thomas James Wilkinson & Alice Caroline Smith & Ceri Rhiannon Jones, 2021. "Kidney Care during COVID-19 in the UK: Perspectives of Healthcare Professionals on Impacts on Care Quality and Staff Well-Being," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(1), pages 1-14, December.
    20. Murante, Anna Maria & Vainieri, Milena & Rojas, Diana & Nuti, Sabina, 2014. "Does feedback influence patient - professional communication? Empirical evidence from Italy," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 116(2), pages 273-280.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:4:p:1469-:d:493155. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.