Clinicians’ assumptions about Sami culture and experience providing mental health services to Indigenous patients in Norway

This qualitative study explores Sami and non-Sami clinicians’ assumptions about Sami culture and their experiences in providing mental health services to Sami patients. The aim is to better understand and improve the ways in which culture is incorporated into mental health services in practice. Semi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Transcultural Psychiatry
Main Authors: Dagsvold, Inger, Møllersen, Snefrid, Blix, Bodil Hansen
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: SAGE Publications 2020
Subjects:
VDP::Medical disciplines: 700::Health sciences: 800::Community medicine
Social medicine: 801
VDP::Medisinske Fag: 700::Helsefag: 800::Samfunnsmedisin
sosialmedisin: 801
Norway
Finnmark
sami
Troms
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10037/17715
https://doi.org/10.1177/1363461520903123
Description
Summary:This qualitative study explores Sami and non-Sami clinicians’ assumptions about Sami culture and their experiences in providing mental health services to Sami patients. The aim is to better understand and improve the ways in which culture is incorporated into mental health services in practice. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 clinicians in mental health outpatient clinics in the northern Sami area in Troms and Finnmark County in Norway. The findings show that clinicians’ conceptualizations of culture influence how they take cultural considerations about their Sami patients into account. To better integrate culture into clinical practice, the cultures of both patient and clinician, as well as of mental health care itself, need to be assessed. Finally, the findings indicate a lack of professional team discussions about the role of Sami culture in clinical practice.

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