Immigrants’ Experiences of Maternity Care in Japan

Abstract

Language and cultural differences can negatively impact immigrant women’s birth experience. However, little is known about their experiences in Japan’s highly homogenous culture. This cross-sectional study used survey data from a purposive sampling of immigrant women from 16 hospitals in several Japanese prefectures. Meeting the criteria and recruited to this study were 804 participants consisting of 236 immigrant women: Chinese (n = 83), Brazilian (n = 62), Filipino (n = 43), South Korean (n = 29) and from variety of English speaking nations (n = 19) and 568 Japanese women. The questionnaire was prepared in six languages: Japanese (kana syllables), Chinese, English, Korean, Portuguese, and Tagalog (Filipino). Associations among quality of maternity care, Japanese literacy level, loneliness and care satisfaction were explored using analysis of variance and multiple linear regression. The valid and reliable instruments used were Quality of Care for Pregnancy, Delivery and Postpartum Questionnaire, Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine Japanese version, the revised UCLA Loneliness Scale-Japanese version and Care satisfaction. Care was evaluated across prenatal, labor and delivery and post-partum periods. Immigrant women scored higher than Japanese women for both positive and negative aspects. When loneliness was strongly felt, care satisfaction was lower. Some competence of Japanese literacy was more likely to obstruct positive communication with healthcare providers, and was associated with loneliness. Immigrant women rated overall care as satisfactory. Japanese literacy decreased communication with healthcare providers, and was associated with loneliness presumably because some literacy unreasonably increased health care providers’ expectations of a higher level of communication.

Health Literacy and Women's Reproductive Health: A Systematic Review

“…Of the six remaining studies, three were large, internet-based multinational studies, [17][18][19] two were conducted in the United Kingdom, 20,21 and one in Japan. 22 Study samples ranged from less than 100 participants (5 total studies, the smallest consisting of 30 participants) to 8344 participants for one of the internet-based multinational studies. The majority of studies enrolled low-income women seen at university-based clinics or hospitals.…”

“…The majority of studies enrolled low-income women seen at university-based clinics or hospitals. Almost all included English-speaking participants only, although one study enrolled exclusively Spanish-speaking participants, 23 one enrolled both Spanishand English-speaking participants, 24 and one Japanese study 22 and three large, internet-based multinational studies [17][18][19] enrolled participants in several different languages. All but one study 25 had a study population that was exclusively female; most were focused on adult women.…”

Interest in medical health care for foreign residents among Japanese nursing students in areas of varying ethnic diversity

“…However, nurses working in Japan have struggled to adapt to these societal changes, citing the language NURSING STUDENTS' INTEREST IN MHCFR 4 barrier and cultural differences when providing medical care to foreign residents (Hasegawa et al, 2002). These difficulties are also reported by foreign residents when receiving medical care services (Hashimoto et al, 2011;Igarashi et al, 2013;Tashiro et al, 2014).…”

Perception of Childbirth Experiences of Japanese Women in Bali, Indonesia: A Qualitative Study

“…Thus, women's perceptions about their experiences are solely described from the viewpoint of Japanese women which limits the value of the comparison between their perception of the care in Bali Indonesia and their recollections of their care in Japan. Among developed nations, Japan isone of themost ethnically homogeneous population and culture-often described as monoculture [62] whereas generally, Indonesia is not because it is comprised of 13,000 islands with many different ethnic groups [63]. Hence thewomen living in Bali can access better maternal health services than those living in other areas of Indonesia [24].…”