Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052, Australia.
Department of Planning, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi 233, Ghana.
J Integr Med. 2021 Jan;19(1):29-35. doi: 10.1016/j.joim.2020.08.008. Epub 2020 Nov 9.
Barriers to healthcare in Ghana are multifaceted. Many people, including patients and providers, face them at different levels. To address these barriers, there is a need to explore the role of an intercultural healthcare system. This paper explores and provides the first evidence on ways through which an intercultural healthcare system can reduce the sociocultural and economic barriers to healthcare in Ghana.
Focus group discussions with 35 participants comprising 17 healthcare users, 11 formal healthcare providers and 7 alternative healthcare providers were conducted to gather data. Thematic analyses were performed on the transcribed data and presented based on a posteriori inductive reduction approach.
Findings reveal that an intercultural healthcare system in Ghana can help reduce barriers to healthcare, especially cultural, social and economic barriers, by fostering an enhanced relationship between culture and healthcare, promoting affordable healthcare and promoting effective communication between healthcare providers and users. Weak institutional support, lack of strong political will and commitment, lack of training to meet standards of practice, poor registration and regulatory measures, and lack of universal acceptance inhibit implementation of an intercultural healthcare system in Ghana.
The support for intercultural healthcare system and the agreement on its perceived ability to reduce social, cultural and economic healthcare barriers for service users offer an opportunity for policymakers to demonstrate a stronger political will and improved commitment for effective education and training, enforcement of regulatory measures, inclusion of intercultural healthcare in medical school curricula across the country, and community engagement.
加纳的医疗保健障碍是多方面的。许多人，包括患者和提供者，在不同层面上都面临着这些障碍。为了解决这些障碍，需要探索跨文化医疗保健系统的作用。本文探讨并提供了第一个证据，证明跨文化医疗保健系统如何减少加纳医疗保健的社会文化和经济障碍。
对 35 名参与者进行了焦点小组讨论，其中包括 17 名医疗保健使用者、11 名正式医疗保健提供者和 7 名替代医疗保健提供者，以收集数据。对转录数据进行了主题分析，并根据后验归纳法进行了呈现。
研究结果表明，加纳的跨文化医疗保健系统可以通过促进文化与医疗保健之间的关系、提供负担得起的医疗保健以及促进医疗保健提供者与使用者之间的有效沟通，帮助减少医疗保健障碍，特别是文化、社会和经济障碍。制度支持薄弱、缺乏强有力的政治意愿和承诺、缺乏达到实践标准的培训、注册和监管措施不佳以及缺乏普遍接受性，都阻碍了加纳跨文化医疗保健系统的实施。
对跨文化医疗保健系统的支持以及对其减轻服务使用者的社会、文化和经济医疗保健障碍的感知能力的认同，为政策制定者提供了一个机会，展示更强有力的政治意愿和改善承诺，以进行有效的教育和培训、执行监管措施、将跨文化医疗保健纳入全国医学院校课程以及社区参与。
