Table 1.
First author | Publication year | Country | Eligible participants* and practice setting | Service users† | Data collection method | Analysis methodology | Study aims/objectives‡ |
Begg and Gill37 | 2005 | UK | Seventeen general practitioners (GPs) General practice |
Refugees and asylum seekers | Semi-structured interviews | Thematic framework | To identify some of the concerns of 17 GPs working in an urban environment |
Bennett and Scammell38 | 2014 | UK | Ten midwives Community, rotational, specialist and delivery suite midwives |
Female asylum seekers | Semi-structured interviews | Thematic analysis | To gain an in-depth analysis of the experiences of midwives and their understanding of the specific needs of asylum-seeking women. The findings would be used to inform education, practice and policy to enable more effective delivery of woman-centred care for this group locally |
Burchill39§ | 2011 | UK | Fourteen health visitors London borough |
Refugees and asylum seekers | In-depth interviews | Framework | Not clearly stated |
Burchill and Pevalin18§ | 2012 | UK | Fourteen health visitors London borough |
Refugees and asylum seekers | In-depth interviews | Framework | To determine the barriers to effective practice that health visitors when working with refugees and asylum seekers |
Burchill and Pevalin40§ | 2014 | UK | Fourteen health visitors London borough |
Refugees and asylum seekers | In-depth interviews | Framework | Explored the experiences of health visitors working with refugee and asylum-seeking families in central London, and assessed the dimensions of their cultural competency using Quickfall's model |
Carolan and Cassar41 | 2008 | Australia | Two midwives African women's clinic (community health centre) |
Female African refugees | Observational methods and semi-structured interviews | Thematic analysis | To explore factors that facilitate or impede the uptake of antenatal care among African refugee women |
Crowley59¶ | 2005 | UK | Ten GPs General practice |
Asylum seekers | Telephone interviews | Not specified | To assess the mental healthcare needs of adult asylum seekers in Newcastle upon Tyne |
Drennan and Joseph42 | 2005 | UK | Thirteen health visitors Two London boroughs |
Refugees and asylum seekers | Semi-structured interviews | Framework | Describe health visitors’ experiences working in Inner London and identifying and addressing the health needs of refugee woman in the first 3 months after the birth of a baby. Investigate health visitors’ perceptions of effective and ineffective strategies in identifying and addressing health needs of these women. Investigate whether health visitors used a framework corresponding to Maslow's theory of a hierarchy of needs to prioritise their public health work |
Farley et al 43 | 2014 | Australia | Twenty GPs Five practice nurses General practice |
Newly arrived refugees | Focus groups and semi-structured interviews | Thematic analysis | Explored the experiences of primary healthcare providers working with newly arrived refugees in Brisbane…focusing on the barriers and enablers they continue to experience in providing care to refugees |
Feldmann et al 44 | 2007 | The Netherlands | Twenty-four GPs General practice |
Refugees (Afghan/Somali) | In-depth interviews | Thematic analysis | To confront the views of refugee patients and GPs in the Netherlands, focusing on medically unexplained physical symptoms |
Furler et al 45** | 2010 | Australia | Eight family physicians Community health centre |
Refugees with depression | Semi-structured interviews | Thematic analysis | This study explores the complexities of this work (clinical care for depression) through a study of how family physicians experience working with different ethnic minority communities in recognising, understanding and caring for patients with depression |
Griffiths et al 46 | 2003 | Australia | Thirteen nurses Two nurse managers Refugee reception centre |
Refugees | Focus groups and semi-structured interviews | Thematic analysis | To identify the skills, knowledge and support nurses require to provide holistic and competent care to refugee children and their families and the nature of support that is required to assist their transition back to mainstream health services |
Jensen et al 17 | 2013 | Denmark | Nine GPs Medical clinics |
Refugees | Semi-structured interviews | Content analysis | To qualitatively explore issues identified by GPs as important in their experiences of providing care for refugees with mental health problems |
Johnson et al 47 | 2008 | Australia | Twelve GPs General practice |
Refugees | Semi-structured interviews | Template analysis | To document the existence and nature of challenges for GPs who do this work in South Australia. To explore the ways in which these challenges could be reduced. To discuss the policy implications of this in relation to optimising the initial healthcare for refugees |
Kokanovic et al 48** | 2010 | Australia | Five GPs Community health centre |
Refugees with depression | In-depth interviews | Thematic analysis | We explore a set of cultural boundaries across which depression is contested: between recent migrants to Australia from East Timor and Vietnam, and their white ‘Anglo’ family doctors |
Kurth et al 19¶ | 2010 | Switzerland | Three physicians Three nurses/midwives Women's clinic |
Female asylum seekers | Semi-structured interviews | Grounded theory | To investigate the reproductive healthcare provided for women asylum-seekers attending the Women's Clinic of the University Hospital in the city of Basel, Switzerland. To identify the health needs of asylum seekers attending the Women's Clinic and to investigate the healthcare they received in a health maintenance organisation) specifically established for asylum seekers. Explored the perceptions of the healthcare professionals involved, about providing healthcare for this group in this setting |
Lawrence and Kearns49 | 2005 | New Zealand | Five medical practitioners Community health centre |
Refugees | In-depth interviews | Thematic analysis | This paper reports on research that sought to reveal the barriers faced by refugees in accessing health services, and the challenges faced by providers in endeavouring to meet needs in an effective and culturally appropriate manner |
Riggs et al 50 | 2012 | Australia | Twelve nurses Maternal and child health services |
Refugee background mothers | Focus groups and Interviews | Thematic analysis | To explore the utilisation and experience of maternal and child health services in Melbourne, Victoria for parents of refugee background from the perspective of users and providers |
Samarasinghe et al 51 | 2010 | Sweden | Thirty-four primary healthcare nurses Various: maternity, child, school, community healthcare, nurse-led clinics |
Involuntary migrant families | Interviews | Contextual analysis | The aim of this study was to describe the promotion of health in involuntary migrant families in cultural transition as conceptualised by Swedish primary health care nurses |
Suurmond et al 53†† | 2013 | The Netherlands | Thirty-six nurse practitioners Ten public health physicians Asylum seeker centres |
Newly arrived asylum seekers | Group interviews | Framework | To describe the tacit knowledge of Dutch healthcare providers about the care to newly arrived asylum seekers and to give insight into the specific issues that healthcare providers need to address in the first contacts with newly arrived asylum seekers |
Suurmond et al 52†† | 2010 | The Netherlands | Eighty-nine nurse practitioners (questionnaires) Thirty-six nurse practitioners (group interviews) Asylum seeker centres |
Asylum seekers | Questionnaires and group interviews | Framework | We explored the cultural competences that nurse practitioners working with asylum seekers thought were important |
Tellep et al 54 | 2001 | USA | Six school nurses Schools |
Refugees | Focus group | Unspecified | To describe the nature and meaning of school nurses’ and Cambodian liaisons’ experiences of caring for Cambodian refugee children and families and to explore whether those meanings validated Dobson's conceptual framework of transcultural health visiting |
Tobin and Murphy-Lawless55 | 2014 | Ireland | Ten midwives Maternity hospitals |
Female asylum seekers | In-depth unstructured interviews | Content analysis | To explore midwives’ perceptions and experiences of providing care to women in the asylum process and to gain insight into how midwives can be equipped and supported to provide more effective care to this group in the future |
Twohig et al 56 | 1999 | Canada | Six family practice nurses Ten family physicians Clinic at refugee processing centre |
Refugees | Semi-structured interviews | Textual analysis | To explore roles of family physicians and family practice nurses who provided care to Kosovar refugees at Greenwood, Nova Scotia |
Yelland et al 57§ | 2014 | Australia | Ten midwives Maternity services |
Refugee background families | Interviews and focus groups | Thematic analysis | (1) investigate Afghan women and men's experience of the way that health professionals approach inquiry about social factors affecting families having a baby in a new country and (2) investigate how health professionals identify and respond to the settlement experience and social context of families of refugee background |
Yelland et al 58§ | 2016 | Australia | Ten midwives Maternity services |
Refugee background families | Interviews and focus groups | Thematic analysis | (1) Describe Afghan women's and men's experiences of language support during pregnancy check-ups, labour and birth; (2) explore health professionals’ experiences of communicating with Afghan and other refugee clients with low English proficiency and (3) consider implications for health services and health policy |
*Some studies included some participants not eligible for this review. These participants have not been included in this table.
†Service users as described by the authors.
‡The aims and objectives are from the author (ie, extracted directly from papers).
§These articles were based on data from the same sample, but reported different aspects.
¶Mixed methods were used in these studies. This table only includes characteristics of the qualitative element relevant to this review.
**The five GPs in Kokanovic 2010 are included within the eight physicians in Furler et al, 45 but report different aspects.
††The 36 nurse practitioners are common between articles, but report different aspects.