Is the English National Health Service meeting the needs of mentally distressed Chinese women?
OBJECTIVE
To identify barriers to communication between health care workers and Chinese women living in England, a group who are known to use the National Health Service (NHS) less than other ethnic groups; to consider whether such barriers lead to inequitable access to NHS mental health treatment; and to determine the extent to which this results from institutional racism.


METHODS
A purposive sample of 42 Chinese women living in South-East England aged 29-60 years derived from a primary care group, two secondary mental health service providers and three Chinese associations. Subjects had all consulted a general practitioner and had either experienced mental distress (n= 24) and/or had used traditional Chinese medicine (n = 25).


RESULTS
Communication with health care professionals was hindered by a lack of common language and an absence of shared concepts concerning the causes and manifestations of health and illness, particularly mental health. This lack of communication resulted in delayed diagnoses, misunderstood treatment regimens and deterred women from (re-)presenting to the NHS. Among our informants, these types of problem were more acute for those women who were most marginalised from English-language culture.


CONCLUSIONS
Linguistic and conceptual problems explain Chinese women's relatively poor access to mental health services. The continuing failure to tackle systematically these communication problems through the routine provision of interpretation and advocacy services lays the health care system open to the charge of "institutional racism".
Green
Gill
G
Department of Health and Human Sciences, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK.
Bradby
Hannah
H
Chan
Anita
A
Lee
Maggy
M
Eldridge
Kimmy
K
D000328:Adult; D002681:China / Q000208:ethnology; D003144:Communication Barriers; D019091:Critical Pathways; D003863:Depression / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000628:therapy; D004739:England; D005260:Female; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008131:London; D008605:Mental Health Services / Q000592:standards*; D008875:Middle Aged; D017060:Patient Satisfaction / Q000208:ethnology*; D011287:Prejudice; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000592:standards*; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations; D013222:State Medicine / Q000592:standards*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014932:Women's Health Services / Q000592:standards*