“It's a whole package…all part of your body and mind, your soul”: Experiences and Knowledge of Mental Wellness Among Urban Indigenous Elders in the Southern Interior of British Columbia

Indigenous peoples in Canada experience higher rates of adverse health outcomes due to historical and contemporary colonialism. In conjunction with a Community Advisory Committee, this research project explored knowledge and experiences of mental wellness among urban Indigenous Elders in the Southern Interior of British Columbia. This project used a qualitative methodology, including traditional and modified sharing circles and individual interviews for data collection. The resulting transcripts were thematically analyzed. Internal validity was established using member checking. Five themes were identified, including: holistic wellness; poor mental wellness outcomes; determinants of mental wellness; the healing journey; and, services and supports. A self-reflection chapter provides insight on the project from the student’s perspective. The research findings are located within the existing academic literature, and the unique ways urban Indigenous Elders experience mental wellness are discussed. Implications of the findings are provided for healthcare systems, cultural safety, policy makers, inter-sectoral collaboration, and future research

Cultural safety strategies for rural Indigenous palliative care: a scoping review

Background: There is little scholarship on culturally safe approaches to palliative care, especially for rural Indigenous clients. Thus, it is important to articulate how cultural safety can be enacted to support rural Indigenous Peoples and communities at end of life. We sought to identify strategies described in existing literature that have potential to deepen our understanding of culturally safe approaches to palliative care within rural and small-town settings in Canada. Methods: We searched for peer-reviewed and grey literature about Indigenous palliative care in rural and small-town settings in Canada, United States, New Zealand, and Australia. Medline, CINAHL, and Embase were searched. We thematically analyzed 22 resulting articles to address our interest in culturally safe approaches to palliative care in rural/small-town and on-reserve contexts. Results: The following themes were extracted from the literature: symbolic or small gestures; anticipating barriers to care; defer to client, family and community; shared decision-Making; active patient and family involvement; respectful, clear, and culturally appropriate communication; community ownership of services; empower cultural identity, knowledge, and traditions; and, policy. Discussion: Culturally competent practices can improve Indigenous palliative care services; however, they do not result in decolonized care. Strategies include: symbolic or small gestures; anticipating barriers to access; deferring to the client, family, and community members; and, collective decision making and family involvement. Culturally safe approaches contribute to institutional or organizational change and decolonized care. Strategies include: involvement of patient and family in service planning; reflection about individual and systemic racism; community ownership of services and; recognizing distinct Worldviews that shape care. Conclusions: Culturally safe strategies invite decolonization of care through awareness of colonialism, racism, and discrimination. They invite commitment to building partnerships, power sharing, and decision-making in the delivery of care. Culturally competent activities may catalyze the adoption of a cultural safety framework; however, mislabeling of cultural competency as cultural safety may contribute to organizational inaction and a watering down of the spirit of cultural safety.Health and Social Development, Faculty of (Okanagan)Non UBCReviewedFacult

Indicators and measurement tools for health system integration : a knowledge synthesis

Background: Despite far reaching support for integrated care, conceptualizing and measuring integrated care remains challenging. This knowledge synthesis aimed to identify indicator domains and tools to measure progress towards integrated care. Methods: We used an established framework and a Delphi survey with integration experts to identify relevant measurement domains. For each domain, we searched and reviewed the literature for relevant tools. Findings: From 7,133 abstracts, we retrieved 114 unique tools. We found many quality tools to measure care coordination, patient engagement and team effectiveness/performance. In contrast, there were few tools in the domains of performance measurement and information systems, alignment of organizational goals and resource allocation. The search yielded 12 tools that measure overall integration or three or more indicator domains. Discussion: Our findings highlight a continued gap in tools to measure foundational components that support integrated care. In the absence of such targeted tools, “overall integration” tools may be useful for a broad assessment of the overall state of a system. Conclusions: Continued progress towards integrated care depends on our ability to evaluate the success of strategies across different levels and context. This study has identified 114 tools that measure integrated care across 16 domains, supporting efforts towards a unified measurement framework