Experiences with the medical and health systems for somali refugees living in Hamilton

New Zealand Journal of Psychology, Jun 2003 by Guerin, Bernard, Abdi, Abdirizak, Guerin, Pauline

Results and Discussion

Perceptions of Good and Poor Health

Most of the participants rated themselves as in good health, with an average of 5.2 on the 7-point scale (slightly above the label "good"). Correspondingly, most were not concerned about their health, with an average of 2.5 on the scale of how concerned they were about their health. Both these ratings correlated with English proficiency, with better health and less concern about health both associated with better English.

Table 1 shows the frequency of the themes mentioned when asked about their views on good and poor health. The authors judged whether similar responses were the same theme and there was little disagreement about this. Participants' words were used in the Table rather than our re-wording of them. For example, "lack of sleep" was worded in just a few different ways but the responses were clearly meaning the theme as reported in Table 1-the full list of responses maps quite easily onto the responses listed. The themes have been put into five categories by the authors but other ways to organize these might be possible: health, moral/good clean living, mental life, getting things done, and family. The categories do not affect the results but are one way to order the themes.

Table 1 shows that many saw health in a positive way-as the presence of healthy attributes rather than the absence of sickness. There was also a strong association between being healthy, or not being in poor health, and mental health indicators such as being free from worries. Talking to themselves and thinking a lot were seen by some as problems of health. Many expressed that good health related to being able to do things and being active, and having a good enough standard of living to do things. Also of interest was the strong role that family played in health, with some viewing the absence of their families as a health problem (many family members are still in refugee camps overseas or missing, and refugees here have to pay airfares and application fees for reunification and this is difficult for many of them).

The question relating to how often they get out of the house for shopping, work or some activity provided interesting findings. While overall the average was high, 5.6 on the 7-point scale, there was a very strong gender difference in this sample, with men (M=6.76) going out of the house significantly more often than women (M=4.58), F (1,52) = 24.0, p

Family Organisation of Health

Some of the questions related to how families managed their health. When asked, "who usually suggests that someone needs to go to the doctor", and "who sees to it that family members are healthy", the answers were similar: primarily the parents (27 and 27 respectively) and the mother (17 and 20 respectively), with a few saying the father (3 and 5 respectively) or the male head of the house (1 and 1 respectively). Twelve participants also said that adults would look after themselves.

If there was an emergency, most (42) knew to go to an emergency clinic, 8 would phone an ambulance, 7 said they would go to their GP, 5 said they would dial 111, and one would recite the Qu'ran and pray to God. Some gave more than one answer in this section.