Abstract
BackgroundIn the context of an effective consumer engagement framework, there is potential for health‐care delivery to be safer. Consumers from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds may experience several barriers when trying to engage about their health care, and they are not acknowledged sufficiently in contemporary strategies to facilitate patient engagement.MethodsFour focus group discussions were facilitated by bilingual fieldworkers in Arabic, Mandarin, Turkish and Dari in a district of Sydney, Australia that has a high proportion of CALD consumers. Each group included 5‐7 health‐care consumers who, using a topic guide, discussed their experiences of barriers and facilitators when engaging with health‐care services in Australia. Thematic analysis was undertaken to identify, analyse and report patterns in the data.ResultsIn all, 24 consumers participated. Six inter‐related themes emerged: navigating the health system; seeking meaningful interpretation; understanding and managing expectations; respectful professional care; accessing services; and feeling unsafe.ConclusionsThe incorporation of strategies such as professional interpreters and migrant health workers may go some way to addressing the needs of culturally or linguistically diverse consumers and facilitate communication, but do not sufficiently address the range of barriers to consumer engagement identified in this work. Understanding consumer experience in the context of the complex factors that may be associated with poor engagement and poor outcomes such as health literacy, cultural, educational and linguistic background, and health‐care setting or condition, may contribute to better understanding about how to deliver quality health care to these patients.
Highlights
In the context of an effective consumer engagement framework, there is potential for health‐care delivery to be safer
Patient engagement can be conceptualized on a spectrum from con‐ sultation relating to information exchange through to partnership, in which patients contribute to decision making and are recognized as a part of the health‐care team.[1,2]
This research was a collaboration with the Multicultural Health Services, which work in collaboration with clinical, non‐clinical and community part‐ ners and consumers to improve access to health services, empower diverse communities to actively participate in their health care and improve organizational capacity to respond to health needs of culturally and lin‐ guistically diverse (CALD) consumers and populations
Summary
In the context of an effective consumer engagement framework, there is potential for health‐care delivery to be safer. Patient engagement frameworks are designed to increase the ca‐ pacity of health‐care consumers in shared decisions about the plan‐ ning and delivery of health care. This notion of patient engagement in policy development and implementation has gained traction over the last 20 years.[2] An effective patient engagement framework has the potential to make health‐care delivery safer; to increase the mu‐ tual accountability of patients and providers; to allocate resources that centre on patient priorities; and to be more responsive and pa‐ tient‐centred.[3,5] Consumer engagement has a significant presence in health policy internationally, reflected in the range of patient en‐ gagement and partnership initiatives, evident in health‐care settings worldwide.[4,6,7]
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