From inside the bubble: migrants’ perceptions of communication with the cancer team

Abstract

Migrants with cancer experience additional challenges to those of native-born patients. Participants provided cogent advice regarding optimal communication with people from their culture. There is clearly a need to develop strategies to increase the cultural competence of care to people from different countries.

Assessing the invariance of a culturally competent multi-lingual unmet needs survey for immigrant and Australian-born cancer patients: a Rasch analysis

“…To inform the construction of a culturally competent survey of the health-care needs of immigrant cancer patients, we conducted a qualitative study [7], and reviewed original research on the unmet needs of immigrants with cancer. We then assessed available unmet needs surveys, and selected the Supportive Care Needs Survey (SCNS) and the Cancer Survivors Unmet Needs survey (CaSUN), as the most suitable basis for developing a culturally competent assessment that covered the needs expressed by our CALD groups.…”

“…Immigrant groups diagnosed with cancer are worse off than comparable non-immigrant groups in terms of survival [5], psychological morbidity and quality of life [6]. These disparities may arise from a lack of familiarity with the healthcare system, lack of culturally appropriate information, communication difficulties for culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) patients, and cultural attitudes and beliefs toward cancer [7][8][9]. Thus there is an imperative to develop and validate a questionnaire to assess unmet needs in immigrant cancer patients and survivors [2,10,11].…”

“…However, immigrants may have unique needs as a result of the issues outlined above [7]. Furthermore, the interpretation of items and scores must remain invariant across diverse languages and cultural groups to enable valid comparisons.…”

“…These disparities may arise from a lack of familiarity with the healthcare system, lack of culturally appropriate information, communication difficulties for culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) patients, and cultural attitudes and beliefs toward cancer [7][8][9]. Thus there is an imperative to develop and validate a questionnaire to assess unmet needs in immigrant cancer patients and survivors [2,10,11].Existing unmet needs questionnaires address themes that may be common to immigrant and nonimmigrant cancer survivors, including needs related to the health system and information, physical and daily living, patient care and support, sexuality, and survivorship [1,4,7]. However, immigrants may have unique needs as a result of the issues outlined above [7].…”

“…Existing unmet needs questionnaires address themes that may be common to immigrant and nonimmigrant cancer survivors, including needs related to the health system and information, physical and daily living, patient care and support, sexuality, and survivorship [1,4,7]. However, immigrants may have unique needs as a result of the issues outlined above [7].…”