Ethnic minority patients yearn for warmth from health care professionals, research finds

Developing better connections between ethnic minority patients and health care professionals could drive more positive health care experience for ethnic minority patients, researchers have found.

Responding to reports of discrimination and treatment lacking in empathy, the researchers, led by the University of Westminster and including scientists from the University of Portsmouth, Oxford University, Queen Mary University London and King’s College London, analysed the social and cultural influences in the experience of ethnic minority psychological and/or cancer patients in 29 studies.

The research team uncovered a multitude of human feelings at play during the care of ethnic minority patients which has been overlooked until now.

Understanding and reacting to patients with warmth and positivity, just as a family member or friend would, could have a transformative impact on improving care.

The researchers found that patients essentially yearned to have their whole selves and circumstances in which they lived recognised and understood by their practitioners. Or as one participant in one of the studies examined said, professionals who “who will listen to us, who will allow us to talk”.

The study shows that warm language and feeling connected is used frequently to describe successful partnerships with professionals. An asylum seeker from Sudan in an included study said, “if she has not won my love, some of the things, it’s not easy to talk about it…she’s concerned with my life.” Others talked about valued professionals as being like their “family”.

The study, which has been published by PLOS ONE, concludes that training in developing better connections with patients could be a way to improve the care for ethnic minority patients.

Dr Karen Pilkington, Visiting Senior Research Fellow in the School of Health and Care Professions at the University of Portsmouth, said: “Bringing together and further analysing the findings of these studies has given new insights into caring for people from ethnic minorities. In particular, the importance of trying to connect with patients and understand their individual backgrounds, circumstances and perspectives, rather than viewing them as somehow ‘other’.”

Professor Damien Ridge, Lead Researcher from the University of Westminster, said: “Essentially, we found that it is the common human things that connect us and that are important to us, which have been overlooked in the care for ethnic minority patients, and which, if better understood by professionals, could help to improve care. Positively, our findings suggest that practitioners can be trained to draw upon their own emotional lives, to improve connections with their patients who feel disengaged.”