A qualitative study among women immigrants from Somalia – experiences from primary health care multimodal pain rehabilitation in Sweden

Abstract

Background: Immigrants often experience difficulties with acculturation and post migratory stress after arrival in a host country and studies report poor health, chronic pain and depression. This is a challenge for primary health care and interventions need to be evaluated. Objectives: To explore the experiences of a group of women from Somalia who took part in a multimodal pain rehabilitation programme in primary healthcare in Northern Sweden. Methods: Seven individual interviews a few months after participation, and a focus group discussion one year after the programme were conducted and analysed with Grounded theory. Results: A core category regained life emerged from the data. This was described as a process in two categories: panic and connection. The participants experienced that the programme was helpful and that the pain was reduced. They became more open-minded; got new ideas and knowledge; were helped to improve their societal adaptation and integration; experienced that they were not alone; and learned that there is benefits when a group of people share experiences and feelings. Conclusions: Multimodal pain rehabilitation can be helpful for women immigrants from Somalia. The programme triggered positive changes in their lives and they received knowledge about how to manage pain and improved their self-confidence and health.

Well-being through group exercise: immigrant women’s experiences of a low-threshold training program

“…One can see factors such as universality, helping another and hope as being relevant when placing the phenomenon in the framework of group therapy (Kjølstad, 2004). Review studies (Derr, 2016;Semedo et al, 2019) have shown that social support is particularly important for immigrants. The women in the study group, through being part of and belonging to the group, were given the opportunity to experience that they are not alone with their health disturbances.…”

“…One can see factors such as universality, helping another and hope as being relevant when placing the phenomenon in the framework of group therapy (Kjølstad, 2004). Review studies (Derr, 2016, Semedo et al, 2019 have shown that social support is particularly important for immigrants.…”

“…Group exercise can provide other extensive benefits. This includes interaction with others, social integration, the opportunity to expand one's social acquaintances (Daley, 2014) and to share experiences and feelings (Semedo et al, 2019) facilitated through women-only programs and cultural tailoring of interventions (Marinescu et al, 2013;Berggren et al, 2017).…”

“…In 2017 there were 258 million people residing in a country that was not their country of birth (IOM 2018) and in Norway 17.8 per cent of the population of five million are migrants (SSB 2019). Studies show that immigrants are at a higher risk of experiencing health issues, including mental health problems (Ahmad et al, 2005, Rechel et al, 2013, Bas-Sarmiento et al, 2017, Semedo et al, 2019. A number of reviews (Afari et al, 2014, Rohlof et al, 2014, Bustamante et al, 2018, Lanzara et al, 2019 furthermore report a high prevalence of psychological distress and psychosomatic complaints among immigrants, women being more vulnerable to mental health problems.…”

Healthcare professionals’ encounters with ethnic minority patients: The critical incident approach

“…Migrants are considered socially more vulnerable. As patients, they face challenges concerning communication and are at higher risk of experiencing health problems, including mental health illnesses (Ahmed et al, 2017; Bas‐Sarmiento et al, 2017; Semedo et al, 2019). Yet migrants’ overall consumption of different forms of healthcare services is, in many respects, lower than that of the general population (Debesay et al, 2019).…”