International Students’ Experience With Health Care in Japan

Masumi Soneta,Aya Kimura,Renaguli Abuliezi,Akiko Kondo

doi:10.1177/21582440211009211

Masumi Soneta, Aya Kimura + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440211009211

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Abstract

The number of foreign residents and visitors in Japan is increasing, which necessitates culturally competent care in hospitals. This study aimed to describe the experience of international students who visited hospitals in Japan. In total, nine international graduate students in a medical university participated in semi-structured interviews in English. The interview contents were transcribed and analyzed using content analysis. While participants were satisfied with an efficient medical system and kind staff, they also had difficulty communicating with staff and receiving health care due to language and cultural differences. Participants desired Japanese health care staff speak English, as well as have English documents. The differences from their own countries were mainly medical fees, insurance, the medical system itself, and use of English to communicate with foreign patients. It is necessary to improve staff’s English skills, provide English documents, use multilanguage interpreter services, and explain Japanese hospitals’ medical system.

Highlights

In Japan, the number of foreign residents and visitors has been increasing
International students were defined as students who were born and raised in other countries and came to Japan to study at the university
If the structure of analysis is operationalized on the basis of previous knowledge and the purpose of the study is theory testing, deductive content analysis is used, which moves from the general to the specific (Elo & Kyngäs, 2008)

Summary

Introduction

In Japan, the number of foreign residents and visitors has been increasing. By June 2020, there were 2.88 million foreign residents in Japan (2.3% of the population), a record high. It is, still very low compared with other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries (OECD Data, 2019), and permanent residents account for only. The number of foreign visitors in 2019 was 31.8 million people, which increased 6 times from 5.2 million people in 2003 (Japan National Tourism Organization, 2020). The Japanese government set a goal to have 40 million foreign visitors in 2020 for Tokyo Olympic and economic activation (Japan Tourism Agency, 2019)

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