Cultural competence has been recognized as an essential process in reducing racial and ethnic health-care disparities and improving equity in health care. Recent immigrants to Canada encounter a different and unfamiliar health-care system. This study aims to focus on examining the role of cultural competence in improving communication between immigrant patients and their health-care providers.
Using an exploratory approach, four focus group discussions with a sample of recent immigrants were conducted to gain insights from immigrant patients’ perspectives with regard to communicating with their health-care providers. The focus group discussions were analyzed using a thematic analysis approach. Campinha-Bacote’s Cultural Competence Model was used for this study as its theoretical framework.
The focus group findings revealed that the lack of cultural competence among health-care providers and language barriers are major issues that impact the health-care experiences of immigrant patients. Health-care organizations may use these findings to better inform their decision-making with regard to effective patient–provider communication.
This study advances the line of research that examines patient–provider communication by adding diverse immigrant patients’ perspectives. The findings can inform the design of cultural competence strategies for health-care organizations.
