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New co-designed resources supporting culturally diverse older adults leaving hospital

Monash University

Going home from hospital can be an anxious time for older people, their carers and family members. Yet limited resources exist to support culturally diverse carers to cope with this transition, despite Australia’s multicultural society.

 

To address this, a Living Labs project funded through the National Centre for Healthy Ageing (NCHA) – a partnership between Monash University and Peninsula Health – focused on creating co-designed multimedia resources with Greek, Italian and Chinese carers, and older adults, to support their interaction with health professionals and care providers.

 

The project, led by Associate Professor Jacqui Allen and Dr Yaping Zhong, from NCHA and Monash University’s School of Nursing and Midwifery, developed storyboards addressing the different cultural needs and preferences for culturally diverse carers. The storyboards then supported the development of culturally specific and accessible educational videos and brochures, which have been translated across four languages.

 

The brochures include checklists to use for when in hospital, preparing to go home and when at home. The brochures also include a list of key words and services in aged care, handy tips and links to services to get help and information after being discharged from hospital. 

 

The team found each community brought a slightly different approach, often framed around their level of English and digital proficiency and how they liked to access information, through either booklets, videos or person-to-person. 

 

Associate Professor Allen said when you look at the literature there's very limited research about supporting people from culturally diverse backgrounds, yet they have poorer health outcomes. They take a longer time to access health and support services. 

 

“Going online or ringing up support services can be quite challenging, particularly for people who may have never had the opportunity to go to school and don't read and write. They'll be relying on other family members, younger family members to assist them with accessing services and support their ideas about things,” she said. 

 

Family plays a strong role in all three communities with older people looking to their loved ones for support. Associate Professor Allen said the research showed how this framed accessing health services.

 

“Things like respite can be quite challenging for carers from culturally diverse backgrounds because the idea of putting the older person into a residential facility for a couple of weeks so the carers can have a break may not make sense to them. They want to go with them. And again, it's that idea of the family. You don't separate your family. You're all in it together.” 

 

Co-researcher Dr Zhong said lower levels of English and digital literacy were raised by some of the Greek participants. 

 

“In the Greek group, their education level is much lower, and they don't use the internet, and so it's difficult to run online workshops. [Some of them] told us they couldn't read and would prefer someone to talk to them rather than ask them to read a long document.”

 

Dr Zhong said the Chinese community regarded supporting their loved ones through hospital and health service visits as an extended family responsibility.

 

To access the co-designed resources please visit here. 

 

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About the National Centre for Healthy Ageing (NCHA), a partnership between Monash University and Peninsula Health

The NCHA is a research and innovation hub established in 2019 with foundational investment from the Federal Government Department of Health and Aged Care. Its mission is to lead the transformation of health and care related to ageing for all Australians. It works across four key themes to tackle some of the most complex challenges in healthy ageing: Healthy ageing across the lifespan; Dementia; Hospital and home; and Health and care in aged care.