Care managers' experiences of cross-cultural needs assessment meetings: the case of late-in-life immigrants

Abstract

ABSTRACTResearch on care managers' experiences of the needs assessment process is scarce even though the literature on needs assessment practice is relatively extensive. One of the research areas that has not received attention yet is the way in which care managers experience the challenges that are presumably posed by increased ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious diversity among prospective elder care recipients. This article addresses this research gap. It is based on a project that aims to shed light on care managers' experiences of the needs assessment process in general and cross-cultural needs assessment meetings in particular. The data are constituted of focus group interviews with care managers in Sweden (N=60). In this article we focus on care managers' experiences of needs assessment with older people who have immigrated late-in-life, who come from cultures considered different from the Swedish one and who have not mastered the Swedish language. This was the group of older people that the care managers mostly thought of when asked to describe their experiences of cross-cultural needs assessment meetings. The interviewed care managers discussed the challenges that these meetings present, which were related to communication due to language barriers, different demands and expectations, insecurity regarding what is customary in such meetings, as well as perceived passivity among late-in-life immigrants. The article discusses the contributions of the findings to research on care management practices in general, as well as to needs assessment practice in particular.