“They Are Worth Their Weight in Gold”: Families and Clinicians’ Perspectives on the Role of First Nations Health Workers in Paediatric Burn Care in Australia

Julieann Coombes, Sarah Fraser, Kate Hunter, Rebecca Ivers, Andrew Holland, Julian Grant and Tamara Mackean
Additional contact information
Julieann Coombes: The George Institute for Global Health, University of New South Wales, 2052 Sydney, Australia
Sarah Fraser: School of Population Health, University of New South Wales, 2052 Sydney, Australia
Kate Hunter: The George Institute for Global Health, University of New South Wales, 2052 Sydney, Australia
Rebecca Ivers: School of Population Health, University of New South Wales, 2052 Sydney, Australia
Andrew Holland: The University of Sydney, 2052 Sydney, Australia
Julian Grant: Charles Sturt University, 2795 Bathurst, Australia
Tamara Mackean: Flinders University, 5000 Adelaide, Australia

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 5, 1-13

Abstract: Burns affect Australia’s First Nations children more than other Australian children, they also experience longer lengths of stay in tertiary burns units and face barriers in accessing burn aftercare treatment. Data sets from two studies were combined whereby 19 families, 11 First Nations Health Worker (FNHW) and 56 multidisciplinary burn team members from across Australia described the actual or perceived role of FNHW in multidisciplinary burn care. Data highlighted similarities between the actual role of FNHW as described by families and as described by FNHW such as enabling cultural safety and advocacy. In contrast, a disconnect between the actual experience of First Nations families and health workers and that as perceived by multidisciplinary burn team members was evident. More work is needed to understand the impact of this disconnect and how to address it.

Keywords: First Nations; health workers; burn aftercare; children; Australia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/5/2297/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/5/2297/ (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:18:y:2021:i:5:p:2297-:d:506422

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 ().