The relevance of clinical ethnography: reflections on 10 years of a cultural consultation service

Table 8 Issues identified during the cultural assessment (N = 211)

Identified issues	N ^a	%
Patient’s social, economic and/or administrative problems	100	51.3
Patient/provider differences in illness-related beliefs	87	44.6
Language barriers	79	40.5
Patient’s mistrust	40	20.5
Untreated mental health issues	38	19.5
Patient’s low health literacy, unrealistic expectations of medicine	37	19.0
Severe medical condition or poor prognosis	29	14.9
Clinicians’ disbelief, prejudice towards patient	20	10.3
Patient/provider conflict regarding illness management	20	10.3
Trauma and loss	17	7.5
Institutional barriers (changes of health care providers, hospital visiting policy, etc.)	15	7.7
Complex or unfamiliar family dynamics	13	6.7
Other	50	25.6

^aThe sum of requests is greater than 211 because several issues were identified for each referral

ISSN: 1472-6963