Improving Culturally Relevant Care for Refugee Expectant Mothers

Women who are refugees from non-English speaking countries and who become pregnant face many barriers in navigating the US health care system than do native born women. A lack of knowledge about when to secure transportation when in labor, resulting in increased maternal stress and perinatal risk related to delivering in hospitals ill-equipped to deal with the needs of this special population, has been a growing issue in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Refugee women have identified the inability to communicate with or understand providers as a major stressor. Perinatal risk is increased when intrapartum providers cannot obtain needed information and/or obtain patient cooperation. The aim of this project was to teach refugee women how best to access culturally-relevant and appropriate translation services. An intervention was created by the project team and interpreters incorporating culturally appropriate teaching materials in the women's native language. Prenatal women (N=25) who had refugee status and received prenatal care at a refugee women's health clinic attended a prenatal class with content on identification of the early signs of labor and securing appropriate transportation.. A post-class focus group was conducted to determine the effectiveness of the class materials. A content analysis process was used to identify key themes; ‘feeling more comfortable' and ‘ways to make it better.' Recommendations for improving the program were developed and will be discussed. To determine if the intervention was effective in changing behavior, medical record data will be used to determine if any change in delivery patterns has occurred.