Primary Care Networks and Eritrean Immigrants’ Experiences with Health Care Professionals in Switzerland: A Qualitative Approach

Carla Wallimann and Andreas Balthasar
Additional contact information
Carla Wallimann: Department of Health Sciences and Health Policy, University of Lucerne, 6002 Lucerne, Switzerland
Andreas Balthasar: Department of Health Sciences and Health Policy, University of Lucerne, 6002 Lucerne, Switzerland

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 14, 1-12

Abstract: Growing migration in European countries has simultaneously increased cultural diversity in health care. Migrants’ equal access to health care systems and migrant friendly health care have therefore become relevant topics. Findings gathered in recent years have mainly focussed on the perspective of care providers, whereas this study includes migrant perspectives. It explores the primary care network of Eritrean immigrants in Switzerland as well as their experiences of interacting with health professionals. Semi-structured face-to-face interviews with intercultural interpreters from Eritrea were conducted. On the basis of a thematic analysis, the study identified the important informal and formal contacts in these Eritrean immigrants’ primary care networks and the specific forms of support each actor provides. In this network, encounters with health professionals were predominately expressed positively. The main barriers reported were language difficulties and intercultural understanding. On the basis of the participants’ statements, six key lessons for practice have been derived. These lessons are specifically important for facilitating Eritrean immigrants’ access to the Swiss health care system. Nevertheless, they are also relevant for other groups of migrants in European countries.

Keywords: migrant health; primary care; network; health professionals; transcultural competence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/14/2614/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/14/2614/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:14:p:2614-:d:250716

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().