Platform Presentation The Joint Annual Meeting of the Stroke Society of Australasia (SSA) and Smartstrokes 2023

Creating “a safe place to go”: Yarning with health workers about stroke recovery care for Aboriginal people living with stroke. A qualitative study. (#70)

Simone Owen 1 , Amy Thompson 2 , Jackson Newberry-Dupe 3 , Uncle Neville Sampson 4 , Reakeeta Smallwood 5 , Vickie Brandy 6 , Joe Miller 7 , Aunty Audrey Trindall 4 7 , Kim Usher 8 , Natalie Ciccone 9 , Rachel Peake 10 , Christopher Levi 3 6 11 , Heidi Janssen 1 11 12 , and The Yarning up After Stroke Collaborative Group 13
  1. Hunter Stroke Service, Hunter New England Local Health District, New Lambton Heights, NSW, Australia
  2. Consumer with lived experience, Kempsey, NSW, Australia
  3. School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, NSW, Australia
  4. Community Elder, Tamworth, NSW, Australia
  5. Newcastle’s Department of Rural Health, University of Newcastle, Tamworth, NSW, Australia
  6. Hunter New England Health Local Health District, New Lambton Heights, NSW, Australia
  7. Consumer with lived experience , Tamworth, NSW, Australia
  8. School of Health, University of New England, Armidale, NSW, Australia
  9. School of Medical and Health Sciences, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, WA, Australia
  10. Hunter New England Local Health District, Tamworth, NSW, Australia
  11. Heart and Stroke Program , Hunter Medical Research Institute, New Lambton Heights, NSW, Australia
  12. School of Health Sciences, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, NSW, Australia
  13. Cardiovascular Health Mission, Medical Research Future Fund, Australia

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Background: Understanding the experience of accessing culturally safe stroke care is important to optimise the quality of life of regional Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander* people living with stroke. Health workers providing care to Aboriginal people living with stroke provide important insights.

 

Aims: Understand the experiences and opinions of health workers providing stroke recovery care to Aboriginal people living on the Gamilaroi country of regional New South Wales, Australia.

 

Methods: Under Gamilaroi community leadership, community participatory action research methods were undertaken incorporating individual and small group yarn-ups with health workers providing care to Aboriginal people and families living with stroke on Gamilaroi country. This relational approach was continued throughout the qualitative analytic process with a non-Aboriginal qualitative researcher undertaking an inductive narrative analysis of the emergent themes in the yarns, with frequent review and input from Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal researchers and our cultural advisory group. Thematic analysis was performed using NVivo 12 software.

 

Results: Yarning with six different health services (Public Health Service, n = 6, Home & Community Service, n = 1 and Aboriginal Medical Service, n = 2) involving nine health workers (90% female) revealed four themes: (i) Culturally safe health services for patients, family and staff, (ii) Complicated systems and limited resources, (iii) Culturally appropriate coordinated care reflecting people’s circumstance and preferences, (iv) Impacts of disrespect and racism on help-seeking behaviour and (v) Collaborative discharge planning to prevent people ‘falling through the cracks’.

 

Conclusion: These learnings will be used in a collaborative process of co-design with Aboriginal community members and partners, health workers and researchers to develop and test culturally appropriate recovery strategies and tools (e.g., a yarning tool) to optimise the quality of life of Aboriginal people living with stroke on Gamilaroi country.

 

*We recognise the diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Recognising this we have used the preferred term ‘Aboriginal people’.