Healthcare professionals’ perceptions of interacting with patients of South Asian origin attending early inflammatory arthritis clinics

Abstract

Objective
To explore rheumatology healthcare professionals’ (HCPs) perceptions of interacting with patients of South Asian origin attending early inflammatory arthritis (EIA) clinics.
Methods
We used face to face semi structured interviews, designed in partnership with clinician partner to interview ten HCPs involved in running of EIA clinics across seven centres in the UK. Data were recorded, transcribed by an independent company and were analysed using inductive thematic analysis.
Results
Three emerging themes were identified that characterised consulting experiences of HCPs. [1] Varied approaches were used in early inflammatory arthritis clinic, [2] Rheumatology HCP’s challenges in managing and delivering information to patients of South Asian origin in early inflammatory arthritis clinic [3] Moving towards good practice: views on managing future patients of South Asian origin in early inflammatory arthritis clinics. Overall, HCPs found that they required additional skills to support the engagement and management for patients of South Asian origin living with inflammatory arthritis. HCPs felt that they were less effective in addressing self-management issues for this patient group and they found it difficult to determine adherence to medication. In such consultations, HCPs perceived their own limitation of inadequate training contributed towards poor consultations.
Conclusion
For the first time, our data demonstrates that the management of patients of South Asian origin in EIA clinics is under served. To address this, HCPs have identified training needs to improve knowledge and skills in engaging with and supporting patients of South Asian origin. These findings provide a good direction for future research.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Joanna Adams: orcid.org/0000-0003-1765-7060

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