ArticleJournal of racial and ethnic health disparities2025
"If They Help Us, We Can Help Them": First Nations Peoples Identify Intercultural Health Communication Problems and Solutions in Hospital in Northern Australia.
Article in Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- A Systematic Review of Communication-Focused Dementia Interventions for Indigenous Communities.Dementia (London, England) · 2026Pooled it
- "There Is Much More to Learn Still": Embedding Culturally Safe Practice Education into Medical School Programs.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2026Article
- Responding to the Revised First Nations Health and Cultural Safety Accreditation Standards in Australian Primary Medical Education: Institutional Principles and Qualities for Meaningful Progress.The Medical journal of Australia · 2026Article
- Integrating equity into incident reporting and patient concerns systems: a critical interpretive synthesis.BMJ quality & safety · 2025Review
- Language as a pillar of cultural safety: evaluating hospital-based healthcare workers' knowledge of First Nations languages and interpreter services in East Arnhem Land, Australia.BMC health services research · 2025Article
- What do Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory value during the operation journey? A qualitative study.The Medical journal of Australia · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Effective intercultural communication between First Nations peoples and healthcare providers in colonised countries is required to deliver equitable healthcare and improve patient experiences and health outcomes. This paper presents First Nations peoples' perspectives and proposed solutions to problematic communication experiences at Royal Darwin Hospital in northern Australia. The study's methodological foundations comprise decolonising principles rooted in Critical Race Theory, Freirean pedagogy, and cultural safety. Eleven individuals from diverse First Nations backgrounds receiving treatment at the largest hospital in the Northern Territory, participated in in-depth interviews conducted in their preferred languages. Data were inductively analysed, adapted from a constructivist grounded theory approach and guided by First Nations knowledges. First Nations patients at Royal Darwin Hospital described a culturally unsafe hospital due to ineffective intercultural communication. Patient "counterstories" recounted instances of confusion, aggression, healthcare provider resistance to shared decision-making opportunities, pressure to abandon cultural protocols, and institutional neglect. Poor communication incited anger among staff and patients, and contributed to experiences of racism, missed appointments, clinical mistakes, patients prematurely discharging before completing treatment, and patients experiencing financial troubles and homelessness. In a spirit of generosity, patients proposed solutions focused on relationship building and mutual understanding so that new decolonised systems, which draw on First Nations and Western knowledges, can be codesigned. This study serves as a call to action for policymakers, administrators, and healthcare providers to prioritise improving intercultural communication by addressing the behaviour of staff and changing systemically racist policies in the pursuit of health equity and cultural safety for First Nations peoples.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.