The Challenges of Providing Culturally Competent Care Within a Disability Focused Team

Abstract

The study makes recommendations for cultural competency within health and social care services.

What do we know about the health and health care of people with intellectual disabilities from minority ethnic groups in the United Kingdom? A systematic review

“…Language was identified as a primary barrier to therapeutic engagement by service providers/professionals working with South Asian people with intellectual disabilities, and whilst interpreters were frequently used, serious problems were noted with regard to their use (Heer, Rose, & Larkin, ). This included a failure of interpreting services to recognize the distinctions between different South Asian languages, interpreters claiming to be proficient in more than one language when they are not, feeling powerless and out of control in being unable to assess the quality of the interpretation, interpreters lacking familiarity with health‐related concepts, altering the nature of the therapeutic relationship by introducing a greater potential for misinterpretations, and a lack of emotional sensitivity during consultations (Heer et al, ). Service providers further perceived that caregiving was contained within the family environment, meaning that often service providers were unaware of the needs of South Asian families, with families delaying making contact with services until situations reached crisis point (Heer et al, ).…”

“…This included a failure of interpreting services to recognize the distinctions between different South Asian languages, interpreters claiming to be proficient in more than one language when they are not, feeling powerless and out of control in being unable to assess the quality of the interpretation, interpreters lacking familiarity with health‐related concepts, altering the nature of the therapeutic relationship by introducing a greater potential for misinterpretations, and a lack of emotional sensitivity during consultations (Heer et al, ). Service providers further perceived that caregiving was contained within the family environment, meaning that often service providers were unaware of the needs of South Asian families, with families delaying making contact with services until situations reached crisis point (Heer et al, ). However, it is not clear to what extent the views expressed by the service providers are in themselves influenced by stereotyping or discrimination.…”

“…Language has consistently been reported to be one of the barriers underlying low service use by carers from South Asian communities (Ali et al, ; Hatton et al, ; Raghavan & Waseem, ) and has also been highlighted as a barrier to therapeutic engagement by professionals working with South Asians (Heer et al, ). For the non‐UK‐born population, 2011 Census figures indicate that recent arrivals are less likely to be proficient in English (84%) than those who have been in the UK for longer (5–10 years, 90%; 11–30 years, 90%; more than 30 years, 93%) (Office for National Statistics, ).…”

“…However, this cannot be assumed as among people identifying as Bangladeshi, Pakistani or Indian who were born in the UK, a respective 30%, 23% and 14% report not speaking English well or at all (Brodie, Abel, & Burt, ). As such, health services should provide interpreters in order to reduce inequalities caused by the language barrier (Ali et al, ), although serious problems have been noted with regard to their use (Heer et al, ).…”

Cultural competence among nursing students in Saudi Arabia: a cross‐sectional study

“…Provision of culturally sensitive care to patients is an expectation from each healthcare worker in order to ensure high levels of quality care (Cruz et al 2016a). However, mastering the art of delivering culturally competent care presents great challenges to the members of the healthcare team, such as having great diversity in healthcare settings, difficulties in language and communication, challenges posed by the employment of interpreters, limited culturalrelated resources and training, and controlling if not totally eradicating prejudices and biases (Hart & Mareno 2014;Heer et al 2016).…”