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Improving Primary Healthcare Access for Asylum Seekers and Refugees: A Qualitative Study From a Swiss Family Physician Perspective

Since 2015 the need for evidence-based guidance in primary health care management of refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants has dramatically increased. The aims of this study were to identify the challenges met by primary care physicians in Switzerland, by performing semi-structured interviews and...

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Autores principales: Oehri, Johanna, Chernet, Afona, Merten, Sonja, Sydow, Veronique, Paris, Daniel H.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: SAGE Publications 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10328165/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37394820
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/21501319231181878
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author Oehri, Johanna
Chernet, Afona
Merten, Sonja
Sydow, Veronique
Paris, Daniel H.
author_facet Oehri, Johanna
Chernet, Afona
Merten, Sonja
Sydow, Veronique
Paris, Daniel H.
author_sort Oehri, Johanna
collection PubMed
description Since 2015 the need for evidence-based guidance in primary health care management of refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants has dramatically increased. The aims of this study were to identify the challenges met by primary care physicians in Switzerland, by performing semi-structured interviews and to identify possible approaches and interventions. Between January 2019 and January 2020, 20 GPs in 3 Swiss cantons were interviewed. The interviews were transcribed, coded with MAXQDA 18, and analyzed using the framework methodology. Following relevant findings were highlighted; (i) problems relating to health insurance companies among (health-insured) asylum seekers and refugees were negligible; (ii) there is a high acceptance for vaccination by refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants; (iii) limitations in time for consultations and adequate reimbursement for practitioners pose a serious challenge; (iv) the majority of consultations are complaint-oriented, preventive consultations are rare; and (v) the language barrier is a major challenge for psychosocial consultations, whereas this appears less relevant for somatic complaints. The following issues were identified as high priority needs by the study participants; (i) increased networking between GPs, that is, establishing bridging services with asylum centers, (ii) improved training opportunities for GPs in Migration Medicine with regular updates of current guidelines, and (iii) a standardisation of health documentation facilitating exchange of medical data, that is, digital/paper-based “health booklet” or “health pass.”
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spelling pubmed-103281652023-07-08 Improving Primary Healthcare Access for Asylum Seekers and Refugees: A Qualitative Study From a Swiss Family Physician Perspective Oehri, Johanna Chernet, Afona Merten, Sonja Sydow, Veronique Paris, Daniel H. J Prim Care Community Health Original Research Since 2015 the need for evidence-based guidance in primary health care management of refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants has dramatically increased. The aims of this study were to identify the challenges met by primary care physicians in Switzerland, by performing semi-structured interviews and to identify possible approaches and interventions. Between January 2019 and January 2020, 20 GPs in 3 Swiss cantons were interviewed. The interviews were transcribed, coded with MAXQDA 18, and analyzed using the framework methodology. Following relevant findings were highlighted; (i) problems relating to health insurance companies among (health-insured) asylum seekers and refugees were negligible; (ii) there is a high acceptance for vaccination by refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants; (iii) limitations in time for consultations and adequate reimbursement for practitioners pose a serious challenge; (iv) the majority of consultations are complaint-oriented, preventive consultations are rare; and (v) the language barrier is a major challenge for psychosocial consultations, whereas this appears less relevant for somatic complaints. The following issues were identified as high priority needs by the study participants; (i) increased networking between GPs, that is, establishing bridging services with asylum centers, (ii) improved training opportunities for GPs in Migration Medicine with regular updates of current guidelines, and (iii) a standardisation of health documentation facilitating exchange of medical data, that is, digital/paper-based “health booklet” or “health pass.” SAGE Publications 2023-07-02 /pmc/articles/PMC10328165/ /pubmed/37394820 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/21501319231181878 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
spellingShingle Original Research
Oehri, Johanna
Chernet, Afona
Merten, Sonja
Sydow, Veronique
Paris, Daniel H.
Improving Primary Healthcare Access for Asylum Seekers and Refugees: A Qualitative Study From a Swiss Family Physician Perspective
title Improving Primary Healthcare Access for Asylum Seekers and Refugees: A Qualitative Study From a Swiss Family Physician Perspective
title_full Improving Primary Healthcare Access for Asylum Seekers and Refugees: A Qualitative Study From a Swiss Family Physician Perspective
title_fullStr Improving Primary Healthcare Access for Asylum Seekers and Refugees: A Qualitative Study From a Swiss Family Physician Perspective
title_full_unstemmed Improving Primary Healthcare Access for Asylum Seekers and Refugees: A Qualitative Study From a Swiss Family Physician Perspective
title_short Improving Primary Healthcare Access for Asylum Seekers and Refugees: A Qualitative Study From a Swiss Family Physician Perspective
title_sort improving primary healthcare access for asylum seekers and refugees: a qualitative study from a swiss family physician perspective
topic Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10328165/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37394820
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/21501319231181878
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