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It’s all good on the surface: care coordination experiences of migrant cancer patients in Australia

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Abstract

Purpose

Migrants diagnosed with cancer in Australia have high unmet need and poorer psychosocial outcomes than comparable Australian-born patients. It is possible that migrants also experience worse coordination of their cancer care. The purpose of this study was to describe migrant patients’ experience of care coordination to inform the development of items for inclusion in a cancer care coordination questionnaire sensitive to the specific cultural needs of these patients.

Methods

Eighteen Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese), Arabic and Macedonian patients and carers from two metropolitan cancer centres in Sydney, Australia, were recruited. Two focus groups and 11 telephone interviews were conducted in the participants’ own language. A semi-structured interview format was utilised to qualitatively explore participants’ experiences of cancer care coordination during treatment. Themes were identified using a thematic analysis.

Results

Cancer care was generally perceived to be well coordinated. Four themes were identified that impacted on the quality of care coordination as a direct result of a patient’s migrant status: (1) the impact of language on understanding and information access, (2) the role of interpreters and (3) access to services and (4) understanding the roles and responsibilities of the team.

Conclusions

Despite their care generally being well coordinated, migrants require additional assistance such as information in a form appropriate to their language proficiency and understanding of the new health system. Development of a culturally specific measure of cancer care coordination will enable evaluation of future strategies to improve care.

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Funding

This research was received from South Eastern Sydney Local Health District Multicultural Health Service Cultural Diversity Health Enhancement Grant (2013) and a Cancer Institute NSW Translational Health Services Research Grant (09/THS/2-12). The funders had no role in the design, collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Joanne M. Shaw, Heather L. Shepherd & Phyllis N. Butow

  2. School of Public Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Ivana Durcinoska & Jane M. Young

  3. St George Hospital, South Eastern Sydney Local Health, Sydney, Australia

    Winston Liauw

  4. Prince of Wales Hospital, South Eastern Sydney Local Health, Sydney, Australia

    David Goldstein

  5. Psycho-oncology Co-operative Research Group (PoCoG), Chris O’Brien Lifehouse (C39Z), The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Joanne M. Shaw, Heather L. Shepherd & Phyllis N. Butow

Authors
  1. Joanne M. Shaw
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  2. Heather L. Shepherd
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  3. Ivana Durcinoska
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  4. Phyllis N. Butow
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  5. Winston Liauw
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  6. David Goldstein
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  7. Jane M. Young
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Joanne M. Shaw.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interest.

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The authors have full control of all primary data and agree to allow the journal to review data if requested.

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Shaw, J.M., Shepherd, H.L., Durcinoska, I. et al. It’s all good on the surface: care coordination experiences of migrant cancer patients in Australia. Support Care Cancer 24, 2403–2410 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-015-3043-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-015-3043-8

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