How to realize dignified care for female Islamic patients? A qualitative study of intercultural care experiences in Maternity care units in Flanders, Belgium

In daily care practices, healthcare professionals and ethnic minority patients are being confronted with many intercultural challenges. Literature still shows disparities in healthcare, inequalities and barriers in access, lower quality of care and lower health outcomes for ethnic minority patients. These challenges are even more aggravated due to a lack of insight in the ethical concerns and a lack of ethical guidelines in the existing international literature on intercultural care.

In this project, we aim to fill this gap by reaching an in-depth insight into the ethical complexity of providing intercultural care by focusing on the intercultural care experiences of female Muslim patients in the context of maternity care units in Flanders, Belgium. Three sub-objectives should help us to reach this aim. 1) The first sub-objective, is to gain insight in existing international empirical literature on patients’ experiences of the intercultural care encounter in institutionalized healthcare (systematic literature review). 2) Secondly we will examine the experiences of the intercultural care encounter of Muslim women in maternity care settings in Flanders, by focusing on the experiences of the female Muslim patients in the first place. Additionally, we will inquire into the perspective of autochthone healthcare professionals on these experiences of the patients (empirical study with qualitative design). 3) The third sub-objective is to generate professional ethical considerations for realizing good intercultural care for female Muslim patients in the maternity care context in Flanders (ethical reflection and discussion).