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A qualitative study on the experiences of southern European immigrant parents navigating the Norwegian healthcare system

BACKGROUND: Patients’ experiences with health providers and their diagnostic and treatment expectations are shaped by cultural health beliefs and previous experiences with healthcare services in home country. This study explores how Southern European immigrant parents navigate the Norwegian healthca...

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Autores principales: Herrero-Arias, Raquel, Diaz, Esperanza
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7818919/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33478515
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12939-021-01384-8
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author Herrero-Arias, Raquel
Diaz, Esperanza
author_facet Herrero-Arias, Raquel
Diaz, Esperanza
author_sort Herrero-Arias, Raquel
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Patients’ experiences with health providers and their diagnostic and treatment expectations are shaped by cultural health beliefs and previous experiences with healthcare services in home country. This study explores how Southern European immigrant parents navigate the Norwegian healthcare system, through its focus on how this group manage their expectations on diagnosis and treatment practices when these are unmet. METHODS: The study had a qualitative research design. Fourteen in-depth interviews and two focus group discussions with 20 Southern European immigrant parents were conducted in 2017 in three Norwegian municipalities. With the help of NVivo software, data were transcribed verbatim and coded. Following a thematic analysis approach to identify patterns in immigrants’ experiences with the Norwegian healthcare services, the codes were organized into two themes. RESULTS: The first theme includes immigrants’ expectations on diagnostic tests and medical treatment. Southern European immigrants expected more diagnostic tests and pharmacological treatment than what was deemed necessary by Norwegian health providers. Experiences with unmet expectations influenced how immigrants addressed their and their children’s healthcare needs. The second theme comprises immigrants’ experiences of seeking healthcare in Norway (attending medical consultations in the private sector, seeking immigrant healthcare providers, and navigating the healthcare through their Norwegian social networks). This category includes also the alternative solutions immigrants undertook when they were dissatisfied with the diagnosis and treatment practices they were offered in Norway (self-medication and seeking healthcare in home countries). CONCLUSIONS: Cultural health beliefs and previous experiences with healthcare services from home country shaped immigrants’ expectations on diagnosis and treatment practices. This had great implications for their navigation through the healthcare system and interactions with health providers in the host country. The study suggests that successful inclusion of immigrants into the Norwegian healthcare system requires an acknowledgement of the cultural factors that influence access and use of healthcare services. Exploring immigrants’ perspectives and experiences offers important information to understand the challenges of cross-cultural healthcare and to improve communication and equitable access.
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spelling pubmed-78189192021-01-22 A qualitative study on the experiences of southern European immigrant parents navigating the Norwegian healthcare system Herrero-Arias, Raquel Diaz, Esperanza Int J Equity Health Research BACKGROUND: Patients’ experiences with health providers and their diagnostic and treatment expectations are shaped by cultural health beliefs and previous experiences with healthcare services in home country. This study explores how Southern European immigrant parents navigate the Norwegian healthcare system, through its focus on how this group manage their expectations on diagnosis and treatment practices when these are unmet. METHODS: The study had a qualitative research design. Fourteen in-depth interviews and two focus group discussions with 20 Southern European immigrant parents were conducted in 2017 in three Norwegian municipalities. With the help of NVivo software, data were transcribed verbatim and coded. Following a thematic analysis approach to identify patterns in immigrants’ experiences with the Norwegian healthcare services, the codes were organized into two themes. RESULTS: The first theme includes immigrants’ expectations on diagnostic tests and medical treatment. Southern European immigrants expected more diagnostic tests and pharmacological treatment than what was deemed necessary by Norwegian health providers. Experiences with unmet expectations influenced how immigrants addressed their and their children’s healthcare needs. The second theme comprises immigrants’ experiences of seeking healthcare in Norway (attending medical consultations in the private sector, seeking immigrant healthcare providers, and navigating the healthcare through their Norwegian social networks). This category includes also the alternative solutions immigrants undertook when they were dissatisfied with the diagnosis and treatment practices they were offered in Norway (self-medication and seeking healthcare in home countries). CONCLUSIONS: Cultural health beliefs and previous experiences with healthcare services from home country shaped immigrants’ expectations on diagnosis and treatment practices. This had great implications for their navigation through the healthcare system and interactions with health providers in the host country. The study suggests that successful inclusion of immigrants into the Norwegian healthcare system requires an acknowledgement of the cultural factors that influence access and use of healthcare services. Exploring immigrants’ perspectives and experiences offers important information to understand the challenges of cross-cultural healthcare and to improve communication and equitable access. BioMed Central 2021-01-21 /pmc/articles/PMC7818919/ /pubmed/33478515 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12939-021-01384-8 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Herrero-Arias, Raquel
Diaz, Esperanza
A qualitative study on the experiences of southern European immigrant parents navigating the Norwegian healthcare system
title A qualitative study on the experiences of southern European immigrant parents navigating the Norwegian healthcare system
title_full A qualitative study on the experiences of southern European immigrant parents navigating the Norwegian healthcare system
title_fullStr A qualitative study on the experiences of southern European immigrant parents navigating the Norwegian healthcare system
title_full_unstemmed A qualitative study on the experiences of southern European immigrant parents navigating the Norwegian healthcare system
title_short A qualitative study on the experiences of southern European immigrant parents navigating the Norwegian healthcare system
title_sort qualitative study on the experiences of southern european immigrant parents navigating the norwegian healthcare system
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7818919/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33478515
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12939-021-01384-8
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