An exploratory study of migrant workers' experience of healthcare seeking in Taiwan

Abstract

Background: Migrant workers in Taiwan are proved to face health disparity often due to language and cultural barriers although the health care system in Taiwan is well known for its quality. Little is known about the migrant workers' experience of seeking healthcare services and communicating with health care professionals in Taiwan. To accommodate this growing population of migrant workers, it is important to explore their healthcare seeking experience from the intercultural communication and health literacy perspectives. Design: This qualitative study with in-depth interviews is to understand the experience of seeking healthcare for migrant workers in Taiwan, specifically workers from Southeast Asia, who reside in Taipei with government premium-insurance. A snowball sampling was conducted to recruit respondents for this study from Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Myanmar, and Thailand. Results: In general, from patient-centered perspective, barriers to effective health communication are created by the displacement of providers who are not familiar with ethical, cultural values. The language barrier has been the major problem of communication breakdown between medical professionals and patients with similar cultural background such as Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand...Religious belief, ethic difference has also been pointed out as an obstacle by patients from Indonesia, Philippines, Myanmar to build up the mutual trust. All in all, Taiwan healthcare system is in need to include elements regarding to culturally sensitivity knowledge and acknowledgment of migrant workers' specific circumstances to the training process which is in the relation between health literacy and health care outcome in migrant workers which greatly helps conducting programs and interventions for both healthcare professionals and migrant workers patients in Taiwan. So that it can reduce the anxiety and advance intercultural communication in the most effective way. Conclusions: In order to enhance health quality and coverage, the study provides insights into migrant workers' healthcare seeking experience leading to suggestions for Taiwan authorities to improve healthcare system in the era of a more diverse patient population growth.