While previous research explored the utilization of culturally supportive resources in multiethnic communities, there is a paucity of information regarding culturally relevant resources for Black Canadian family members. The study explored Black family members' experiences and interpretations regarding access to culturally supportive resources for family members and their relatives who suffer from substance use disorders. Black family members are defined as African Canadians, Caribbean Canadians, or Caribbean Blacks. A focused ethnography was conducted with a purposive sample of 26 Black family members in Ontario, Canada. The interviews were conducted from June to September 2021. Seventeen participants originated from parts of Africa, and nine were from different parts of the Caribbean. The participants comprised mothers (n = 5), fathers (n = 2), step-fathers (n = 1), husbands (n = 1), wives (n = 2), uncles (n = 5), aunties (n = 2), siblings (n = 5), in-laws (n = 2), and guardians (n = 1). Leininger's four Phases of Ethnonursing Qualitative Data Analysis were used for data analysis. Three themes were generated: (1) Navigating Existing Options and Resources for Families and Their Relatives; (2) Drawing upon Religion and Spirituality as Perceived Resources; and (3) Call for Culturally Relevant Programs for Substance Use Disorders Harm Reduction. Participants described experiencing a lack of culturally relevant resources and subsequently opting to navigate other resources. One such option was to send their relatives back to their country of origin to access cultural rehabilitation treatment options. There is a significant need for guidelines and policies regarding creating timely access to culturally relevant resources in Canada that support families and their relatives towards harm reduction and recovery outcomes.
Stroke affects Aboriginal people at disproportionate rates compared to other populations in Australia. Aboriginal peoples are less likely to receive a timely stroke diagnosis, or timely culturally responsive treatment, as there are very few stroke resources and recovery plans that have been developed by Aboriginal peoples for Aboriginal peoples. Understanding how to develop and implement culturally responsive stroke care requires research approaches that are informed by and with Aboriginal people. A qualitative Indigenous research methodology including "yarning" was undertaken to understand the experiences of both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal health workers from nine health services providing stroke rehabilitation and recovery support to Aboriginal people living within the participating communities. Data were analyzed using an inductive approach driven by an Indigenous research approach. Yarns revealed three themes: (i) the role of culturally safe health environments to support stroke survivors, their family, and health workers; and how (ii) complicated, under-resourced systems impede the capacity to support stroke survivors; and (iii) collaborative and adaptive practices prevent people "falling through the cracks." This study highlights the need to scrutinize the cultural safety of health care, current health systems, workforce, and culture and how these influence the capacity of health workers to provide care that is responsive to the individual needs of Aboriginal stroke survivors and their families. These learnings will inform the co-design of a culturally responsive stroke recovery care strategy to improve the recovery experience and health and well-being of Aboriginal people and their families living with stroke.
Despite overall improvements observed at the national level, there is a significant disparity in childhood vaccination coverage rates between urban and rural regions, particularly within tribal and remote areas in Pakistan. Our study aimed to explore the views of community/tribal leaders concerning barriers and their local solutions for improving vaccine uptake, with a specific focus on remote settings. An exploratory qualitative research study was conducted from July to September 2019 in Shikarpur, Sindh, Pakistan. We interviewed 11 community leaders, after developing a semi-structured interview guide based on the health belief model. Following validation, the collected data was transcribed and subsequently translated into the English language. A stepwise process of manual familiarization, coding, theme generation, and theme review using an inductive approach was followed. While most of the rural community leaders expressed a willingness to support vaccinations, numerous unexplored barriers were identified. These barriers included an unsustainable communication system heavily dependent on polio mobile teams, discourteous behavior of healthcare personnel, cultural restrictions that limited women's involvement, economic hardships, limited transportation options, insufficient collaboration with the education sector, poor knowledge among community leaders, and security concerns. Additionally, they proposed some innovative solutions of information dissemination methods through the Ottaque system, ethics-based training, subsidized transportation services or voucher system, and addressing security concerns in collaboration with community leaders. Our findings suggest policymakers take both community leaders and members for an inclusive policy-making process to redraft the special policy for these remote and rural areas.
The prospect of death influences people's thoughts about and how they deal with their remaining time. We aimed to understand whether patients with progressive, life-limiting diseases are oriented in the past, present, or future and how they deal with temporality. We conducted 57 in-depth interviews with end-of-life patients in 10 countries using thematic analysis at three levels (i.e., locally in three countries, with codes shared in the three-country subgroup, and in all 10 countries with a codebook that we developed). We found that the patients' thoughts were oriented toward all three time levels (i.e., past, present, and future). Complementing these levels, we identified another, namely, the future after death. Each time level included patients actively and passively dealing with their thoughts. Past themes were remorse and regret, nostalgia, and coming to terms with past choices; present themes were feeling grateful for being alive, a time for farewells, and living for the day; future themes were worries about the future, to miss out, hope, ideas about death and dying, and planning the near future; and future after death themes were not being there, worries about loved ones, and preparations for a future after death. A changed view on lifetime and avoidance of thinking about a certain time level related to several time levels, while desire to die fluctuated between levels and between acting on and feeling about it. Living for the day, worries about the future, and worries about the well-being of loved ones were common themes in all countries.
Chronic illness can disrupt many aspects of life, including identity, social relationships, and anticipated life trajectories. Despite significant scholarship on chronic illness, we know less about the ways in which chronic illness impacts feelings of loneliness and how people with chronic illness deal with loneliness. Drawing on concepts of biographical disruption and liminality and data from walking and photo-elicitation interviews with 14 people, we aimed to explore how people with chronic illness experience loneliness in their everyday lives. Tracing how past and present illness experiences are implicated in the lived experience of loneliness and the strategies people use to manage loneliness, our findings illustrated that being caught in a liminal state where participants struggled to maintain and adapt to a new normality in life with chronic illness was a central thread woven throughout their experience of loneliness. Although participants drew on their personal agency and adopted strategies to account for, manage, and limit disruptions from chronic illness and loneliness, they found that their strategies were not completely effective or satisfactory. Chronic illness and loneliness continue to be largely considered as an individual's problem, limiting opportunities for people with chronic illness who experience loneliness to seek support and social connection. Our research highlighted that chronic illness and loneliness need to be acknowledged as both a personal and collective problem, with multi-level responses that involve individuals, communities, and society.