Communication between parents and neonatal healthcare professionals using pictorial support when language barriers exist – parents’ experiences

Abstract

Purpose Families arriving in Sweden after being forced to flee their home need health care. Communication is a key component to establishing good care relations and becomes difficult when there are language barriers between families and healthcare professionals. In the context of neonatal care, communication is carried out with parents. The aim of the study was to describe parents’ experiences of communication with neonatal healthcare professionals and using pictorial support when language barriers exist. Method The study takes a qualitative approach based on seventeen interviews with parents who had experienced neonatal ward. Qualitative content analysis was used. Results The parents needed to communicate through supports, which caused distress and misunderstanding. The relationship between parents and the healthcare professionals affected the communication. Pictorial support was used to different degrees. Four categories were identified from the data analysis: Communicating through supports, Facing barriers in communication, Facing external influences and The need for a good healthcare relationship. Conclusion The present study is the first to describe parents’ experience with using the pictorial support developed in the project KomHIT Refugee and therefore fulfils the function of being a first evaluation of the pictures from parents’ perspective.

Ecological predictors of cultural competence among nurses in the neonatal intensive care unit: A cross‐sectional descriptive study

“…NICU nurses help mothers who are separated from their babies and have difficulty forming attachments to build mother-infant relationships and educate them to holistically care for their babies at home after discharge from the NICU (Smith, 2021). Further, appropriate palliative care must be provided to meet the mental and spiritual needs of newborns in incurable conditions leading to death (Bertaud et al, 2023); however, such care may be restricted due to communication difficulties with parents from other cultural backgrounds (Gotting et al, 2022). The beliefs and norms of patients from backgrounds that are different from those of nurses can act as barriers to interaction (Lin et al, 2019).…”