Paper: Cultural issues in disability prevention, rehabilitation, and return-to-work process

Author(s) and Affiliation(s):
Daniel Côté, Institut de recherche Robert-Sauvé en santé et en sécurité du travail (IRSST)
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Day/Time: Saturday at 11:15
Room: St. David Room, 3rd Floor
Objectives:

To describe the growing evidence in the cultural issue in rehabilitation and return-to-work process, and to discuss different ways to carry out more culturally sensitive approaches to prevent long-term disability and/or to facilitate return to work among workers from different ethnocultural backgrounds.

Methods:

A survey was conducted using English and French language literature from the early 90s. The databases PUBMED, CINHAL and SocINDEX were consulted using specific keywords such as rehabilitation, therapy, treatment AND cross-cultural communication, cross-cultural comparison, cross-cultural differences, cultural characteristics, cultural competency, transcultural nursing, cultural diversity, cultural factors, culture, ethnic groups, ethnic minority, Work, etc. 56 articles or documents were retained. Content analysis and critical commentary were recorded for each document.

Results:

Cultural issues in disability and return-to-work process are still given less attention, and they are often reduced to ethnic or racial confounding variables. Nevertheless, there are growing evidences showing that cultural issues may be determining factors in enhancing health communications, behaviour changes, interpersonal relationships, empathy, trust and confidence. Clinicians’ cultural competence appears as one of the most promising issue in rehabilitation programs effectiveness and disability management practices.

Conclusions:

This literature review explores cultural issues in disability management, rehabilitation and return-to-work process. The major emerging themes are the development of clinicians’ cultural competency (including building mutual trust and empathy), health and cross-personal communication, and pain or illness representations. All of these themes may have a strong impact on the recovery and return-to-work process.