Older Minority Women and the provider patient encounter

有充分的证据表明，老年少数族裔妇女和老年白人妇女在健康结果方面存在很大差距。阻碍老年少数族裔妇女获得最佳保健的障碍很多，包括她们与其护理提供者之间的沟通不畅和跨文化误解。然而，关于老年少数族裔女性对提供者与患者互动的看法的研究几乎是不存在的。他们对导致令人满意的提供者-患者互动的因素的信念，包括他们对自信的好处的信念，人们很少被理解。也不知道这些信仰如何与文化因素联系在一起。拟议的研究将通过对来自多个族裔群体的居住在社区和收容机构的老年妇女采取定性的重点小组办法来审查这些问题。这项拟议研究的先导信息将被用于开发适合文化的调查工具，以便对老年少数群体妇女的提供者与患者的互动进行更大规模的后续研究。这一研究的长期目标是制定适合文化的教育战略，以鼓励老年少数群体妇女与其提供者之间的有效沟通。

It is well documented that there are large disparities in health outcomes between older minority women and older white women. Barriers to optimal health care for older minority women are many, and include poor communication and cross-cultural misunderstandings between them and their care providers. Yet research on older minority women's views of the provider-patient interaction is virtually non-existent. Their beliefs about factors that lead to satisfactory provider-patient interactions j are poorly understood, including their beliefs about the benefits of assertiveness. It is also not known how these beliefs might be linked to cultural factors. The proposed study will examine these issues through a qualitative focus group approach with community-dwelling arid institutionalized older women from multiple ethnic groups. Pilot information from the proposed study will be used to develop culturally-appropriate survey instruments for a larger follow-up study on older minority women's provider-patient interactions. The long-term objective for this; line of research is to develop culturally-appropriate educational strategies to encourage effective communication between older minority women and their providers.