Characteristics of culturally and linguistically diverse mental health clients

The population of overseas‐born Australians continues to grow including the recent increase of immigrants and refugees from African countries. Due to this increase, healthcare services need to assess if current available services are culturally appropriate for African immigrant inpatients. This qualitative study, with a quality improvement focus, examined current services to identify key service gaps and consider recommendation to improve care of African immigrant mental health inpatients in the hospital from the point of view of staff working within the organisation. What was revealed is that services currently offered to African mental health inpatients were culturally inappropriate. Emerging themes included inadequate interpreter services, lack of cultural awareness staff training, lack of organisation link with other services, unmet spiritual needs, use of staff/families as interpreters, culturally inappropriate information, and lack of or inadequate culturally appropriate policies and framework. Changes to current practices are recommended to provide culturally appropriate mental health care to African inpatients.

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“…Linking services improves the appropriateness of services and promote the well‐being of CALD communities (Khawaja et al . ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Service gaps related to culturally appropriate mental health care for African immigrants

Wamwayi

Cope

Murray

2019

Int J Mental Health Nurs

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“…A number of international (e.g. DSM-V Cultural Formulation Interview; Multicultural Assessment Procedure) 42,43 and regional frameworks [44][45][46] are currently available to assist clinicians working with multi-cultural clientele. These devices can be useful and provide clinicians with a variety of methods to elicit and interpret relevant cultural information.…”

Section: The Futurementioning

confidence: 99%

The mental health of culturally and linguistically diverse offenders – what do we know?

Rose

Shepherd

Ogloff

2020

Australas Psychiatry

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Objective: A key challenge facing justice health service providers is addressing and treating the high rates of mental illness among offenders. It is well documented that rates of mental illness are substantially higher within prison populations compared to the general population. As such, the need to provide ongoing treatment to prisoners experiencing mental health issues is of fundamental importance. Prisoners experiencing mental health disorders are more likely to have poorer social outcomes on release, including a greater likelihood of recidivism and poorer health outcomes. The growing numbers of justice-involved individuals from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds signal the need for justice systems to adapt to the changing demographic. Conclusions: In this commentary, we argue that greater efforts to explore the nature and prevalence of mental illness among CALD groups in custody, where such concerns are often intertwined with additional complex personal, environmental and historical criminogenic risk factors, are desperately needed to improve system responses and reduce recidivism.

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“…This raises concerns about the applicability of these "western" models in multicultural settings, especially in Indigenous contexts (e.g., Ford, 2013;McConnochie, Ranzijn, Hodgson, Nolan, & Samson, 2012;Ranzijn, McConnochie, Clarke, & Nolan, 2007;Vicary & Bishop, 2005). Consequently, psychologists need to culturally adapt the practices of clinical psychology (Khawaja, McCarthy, Braddock, & Dunne, 2013;Nelson et al, 2014;Ranzijn et al, 2007) in order to provide "cultural safety" when practicing cross-culturally (Walker & Sonn, 2010). Cultural competence is thus an essential attribute of clinical psychologists in Australia.…”

Section: What This Paper Addsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cultural Competence in Clinical Psychology Training: A Qualitative Investigation of Student and Academic Experiences

Geerlings

Thompson

Bouma

et al. 2018

Australian Psychologist

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Objective Recent years have seen a marked increase in attention to cultural competence in clinical psychology practice in Australia. While the body of literature on the need for cultural competence is expanding, this is the first study that analyses how cross‐cultural training and practice is experienced and related to standardised models of cultural competence. Method Twelve participants (8 students and 4 academics; 9 females and 3 males, ages 22–57) in two Australian universities were interviewed on their experiences with cultural competence during clinical psychology training. Each semi‐structured interview took about 30 min and focused on identifying the training experiences and needs for cultural competence. Results Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of the transcripts delivered three master themes: experiences of culture, strategies for culturally competent practice, and experiences of cultural competence development. Conclusions Students and academics experienced a “western” bias in training, and consequently adopted a variety of strategies to adapt their practice with culturally non‐western clients. These findings draw attention to the need for structured cultural competence development in professional training programs.

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Characteristics of culturally and linguistically diverse mental health clients

Cited by 17 publications

References 27 publications

Service gaps related to culturally appropriate mental health care for African immigrants

Service gaps related to culturally appropriate mental health care for African immigrants

The mental health of culturally and linguistically diverse offenders – what do we know?

Cultural Competence in Clinical Psychology Training: A Qualitative Investigation of Student and Academic Experiences

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