Katherine Clark MBMS, MMed(pain), FRACP, FAChPM, FACP, is Associate Professor, The Cunningham Centre for Palliative Care, The University of Notre Dame Australia, Sacred Heart Centre, Sydney, New South Wales.
Jane Phillips RN, PhD, is Professor Palliative Nursing, Cunningham Centre for Palliative Care and School of Nursing, The University of Notre Dame Australia, Sydney, New South Wales.
Background
Australia is a culturally and ethnically diverse country.
Within such diversity there will be differing beliefs
systems about death and dying. This may be a challenging
prospect for health professionals.
Objective
This article discusses how cultural diversity may impact
care and provides some strategies for the general
practitioner when considering the provision of end of life
care.
Discussion
This article does not attempt to provide GPs with a
prescriptive approach to multicultural care, as this would
run the risk of stereotyping individuals. Rather, it discusses
the barriers to end of life care among different cultural and
ethnic groups, and suggests ways in which to improve
understanding of different cultural needs in end of life care.
Australian society is culturally diverse. The 2006 National Census revealed that only 46% of migrants since 1945 are of Anglo-Celtic origin. Currently, there are almost 400 different languages spoken in Australia, with 79% of the population speaking only English at home.1 After English, the most commonly spoken languages include Greek, Italian, Cantonese, Arabic, Mandarin and Vietnamese (Table 1).
Download the PDF for the full article.
Correspondence afp@racgp.org.au
Opening or saving files
Files on the website can be opened or downloaded and saved to your computer or device.
To open click on the link, your computer or device will try and open the file using compatible software.
To save the file right click or option-click the link and choose "Save As...". Follow the prompts to chose a location.
Types of file
PDF Most of the documents on the RACGP website are in Portable Document Format (PDF). These files will have "PDF" in brackets along with the filesize of the download. To open a PDF file you will need compatible software such as Adobe Reader. If you do not have it you can download Adobe Reader free of charge.
DOC Some documents on this site are in Microsoft Word format. These will have "DOC" in brackets along with the filesize of the download. To view these documents you will need software that can read Microsoft Word format. If you don't have anything you can download the MS Word Viewer free of charge.
MP3 Most web browsers will play the MP3 audio within the browser