Supporting Pakistani and Chinese families with young children: perspectives of mothers and health visitors

Abstract

Background: In the UK, public health nurses (health visitors) provide support and advice to families with young children, including those form minority ethnic communities. While the need for cultural sensitivity is being increasingly recognised, the factors which contribute to this sensitivity are poorly understood. The Pakistani and Chinese communities constitute the two largest minority ethnic groups in Scotland. This study explored Pakistani and Chinese women's experience of motherhood and of the health visiting service and public health nurses' experiences of working with Chinese and Pakistani mothers.Methods: Semi-structured individual interviews were carried out with 16 Pakistani and 15Chinese mothers. Eight health visitors took part in two focus groups. The study was undertaken in an urban area of Scotland. Data were analysed thematically.Findings: Chinese and Pakistani mothers negotiate complex processes in order to ensure that their children maintain their own ethnic identity while fitting in with their peers in their adopted country. Health visitors were seen as supportive, although sometimes advice and information given was culturally inappropriate, and their role was often poorly understood.Health visitors were anxious to be sensitive to families' religious and cultural beliefs. Conclusions:Cultural sensitivity is an important factor in providing appropriate advice and help to Pakistani and Chinese families, and involves health visitors in considering views and practices on parenting which may differ across cultures, including their own. Family characteristics need to be understood on an individual basis, rather than making assumptions This is an Author's Early Version of © Haycock-Stuart, E. (2014). "Supporting Pakistani and Chinese families with young children: perspectives of mothers and health visitors".Child: Care, Health and Development.Please refer to the published article for citation purposes.2 about clients' cultural norms and lifestyles. This is best achieved by exploring with mothers if they understand the advice and information they are being offered and also if it is appropriate to their cultural and religious beliefs.

A systematic review of quantitative and qualitative literature on health professionals' experiences communicating with Chinese immigrants

“…Health professionals' demographic information is presented in Table 1. Health professionals were employed in the specialties of primary care ( n = 4) (Chan, 2000; Han et al, 2014; Hogg et al, 2015; McKenzie et al, 2015), palliative care ( n = 2) (Bellamy & Gott, 2013; Nielsen et al, 2015) and oncology ( n = 1) (Barnes et al, 1998), and there was a striking lack of research in other common health specialties. The sample size of health professional participants ranged from eight to 67 in each study.…”

“…Three articles examined health professionals' experience specific to caring for Chinese immigrants (Chan, 2000; McKenzie et al, 2015; Nielsen et al, 2015). Four articles compared their experience of caring for Chinese immigrants versus Hispanic (Barnes et al, 1998); Korean, Egyptian and Russian (Han et al, 2014); Maori (Bellamy & Gott, 2013) and Pakistani (Hogg et al, 2015) immigrants. The number of Chinese patients cared for by health professionals differed between the studies, as reported in Table 1.…”

“…Patient age was reported in four of the seven articles, with a significant variation in age between studies. Two articles focused on younger female primary care patients (20–45 years old, Chan, 2000; 23–37 years old, Hogg et al, 2015), and two articles focused on older patients in oncology (60–85 years old) (McKenzie et al, 2015) and palliative care (50–80 years old) (Nielsen et al, 2015).…”

“…The review did not identify any data to support a relationship between quality of health communication and rates of chronic diseases, health literacy and self‐care knowledge. Grouping and comparing key findings generated three core themes on communication: (1) family‐centred cultural influence (Barnes et al, 1998; Bellamy & Gott, 2013; Hogg et al, 2015; Nielsen et al, 2015), (2) health beliefs and health literacy mismatch (Chan, 2000; Han et al, 2014; Hogg et al, 2015; McKenzie et al, 2015; Nielsen et al, 2015) and (3) language and resource mismatch.…”

“…For instance, to protect the collective well‐being, the patient and family sometimes controlled/restricted the flow of information from each other. The family cultural influence was a key point of discussion from health professionals across primary care (Hogg et al, 2015), palliative care (Bellamy & Gott, 2013; Nielsen et al, 2015) and oncology (Barnes et al, 1998), albeit there was no description of who the specific family members were to influence health communication and decision making.…”