DIVERSITY AND COHESION: : The integration of elderly immigrants in long-term care

Abstract

ABSTRACT Aging in a new country is quite challenging; immigrants have to cope with maintaining their culture and also adapting to the culture of the host society. For some, this transition is easy to achieve, while for others, especially those who migrated in their late adulthood, it is not an easy obstacle to overcome. Although Finland is a new country in terms of migration compared to other European countries, there are still a considerable number of immigrants living in Finland, with the vast majority in the Helsinki area. As the number of immigrants increases, so thus their ages, unfortunately very little information is available about the aging immigrant population in Finland. This study is aim at raising the awareness of immigrants’ perception of elderly care, enumerating immigrants’ concerns about institutional care and rraising the awareness of health care planners and providers of the particular needs of elderly immigrants. The methodology employed was qualitative, by means of semi structured interviews. Two groups of interviews were carried out with 16 respondents. The interviews included a selected group of 8 nursing homes workers, who were selected based on multicultural background, length of working period (at least 3years) in institutional care units in Helsinki area. The focus group interviews were carried out with a homogenous (culture, ethnic, religion) group of 8 active elderly immigrants aged 50 and above living with family members. The results revealed that, the elderly immigrants prefer homecare and care giving from family members than in institutional care homes. Cultural identity issues, communication barriers and religious issues were identified as possible challenges for the integration of elderly immigrants into long-term care. Finally the health care services provided to the elderly immigrants should be culturally and linguistically adjusted, based on a client-centeredness approach. Thus, emphasizing the need for cultural competence on the part of healthcare and social service providers. Keywords: Diversity, integration, elderly immigrants, long-term care.