Sammendrag
Background: Physiotherapists are health personnel with expertise in health promotion and have a leading role in society in promoting healthy behaviors. Leading a healthy lifestyle and reducing risk factors related to lifestyle can prevent, delay or minimize the impacts of non-communicable diseases. An important part of health promotion is to recognize cultural factors influencing health and lifestyle choices. Cultural beliefs have an impact on lifestyle and perception of health. Cultural competence in health care has been noticed as important to deliver cultural sensitive care. Being aware of other cultural beliefs, understanding different cultures and perceptions, and being open-minded about other cultural beliefs and views on life, are main elements of cultural competence. In order to promote a healthy lifestyle, understanding cultural influences in physiotherapy and how physiotherapists experience working with patients with other cultural backgrounds can reveal barriers and lessons learned. This study aimed to gain a better understanding of how physiotherapists experience working with health promotion with patients from other cultural backgrounds in the Nordic countries. Additionally, the study aimed to gain a deeper understanding of how physiotherapists from various cultural backgrounds with education from their home country experience working in a Nordic country.
Method: Nine semi-structured interviews with both Nordic and non-Nordic physiotherapists with experience in working with patients with another cultural background in a Nordic country were conducted. The data were transcribed and analyzed with the thematic analysis method.
Result: Five main themes emerged from the data analysis; Promoting a healthy lifestyle, Communication, Knowledge, The structure of the society, and Generalization. Communication and language barriers were perceived as one of the main challenges when working with patients from other cultural backgrounds. The participants experienced lower health literacy among non-Nordic patients, which was perceived to affect the patient’s lifestyle choices. Economic, social, political, and integrational factors were experienced to also affect the lifestyle of the patients. However, all cultures are different, and generalizing cultures can have negative impacts on the meeting regarding preconceptions.
Conclusion: The findings of this study revealed that the physiotherapists experienced both challenges, advantages, and learning experiences when working with health promotion with patients from other cultural backgrounds. The result of this study can contribute to guidance in the development of health promotion interventions in multicultural areas.
Keywords: “Cultural diversity”, “Culture”, “Health promotion”, “Nordic countries”, and “Physiotherapy”.