Within medical facilities in South Africa, including the Western Cape, language barriers often exist between healthcare professionals and their patients. This can cause a barrier to efficient patient treatment. In order to address this problem, educational institutions in the Western Cape have started to introduce Xhosa language facilitation for healthcare professionals. In order to facilitate the learning of this additional language, the use of e-learning as a complement to traditional classroom lectures was investigated. The students who participated in this Xhosa language facilitation were specifically identified. This study was quantitative in nature and questionnaires were used. It was concluded that the combination of lectures and the complementary e-learning component helps to improve the student’s ability to learn an additional language, in this case Xhosa. Recommendations were made that would possibly alleviate the problem of language barriers in healthcare settings in the Western Cape. / Curriculum and Instructional Studies / M. Ed. (Curriculum Studies)

Bakgrund: Antalet immigrerade kvinnor i Sverige har ökat de senaste åren vilket utmanar barnmorskor i arbetet präglat av språkliga och kulturella barriärer. Dessa barriärer är för immigrerade kvinnor riskfaktorer för ojämlik vård samt högre morbiditet och mortalitet. Barnmorskan kan möjliggöra stödjande kommunikation genom bland annat tolkanvändning, kroppsspråk och närvaro. Kulturella barriärer kräver en för barnmorskan kulturmedveten och öppen inställning till kvinnan och hennes kulturella bakgrund. Syfte: Att beskriva barnmorskors erfarenheter av att stödja kvinnor under förlossning med språkliga och kulturella barriärer. Metod: En kvalitativ induktiv design har använts. Tolv enskilda, semistrukturerade intervjuer genomfördes. En manifest innehållsanalys användes. Resultat:  Fyra huvudkategorier frambringades ur empirin; barnmorskans erfarenheter av språkliga barriärer, barnmorskans erfarenheter av kulturella barriärer, barnmorskans svårigheter att ge vård på lika villkor och önskan för framtiden. Resultatet visade att språkliga barriärer utgjorde ett större hinder än kulturella barriärer i möten med immigrerade kvinnor samt att dessa barriärer försvårade bedrivandet av vård på lika villkor om de ej överbryggades. Stöd för kommunikation beskrevs vara bland annat tolkanvändning och kroppsspråk. En önskan yttrades kring utveckling av hjälpmedel för kommunikation samt implementering av kulturdoula i förlossningsvården. Slutsats: Språkliga barriärer uppges vara svårast att hantera men kommunikation möjliggörs genom tolkanvändning, kroppsspråk och hög närvaro på rummet. Kulturella barriärer beskrivs vara lättare att bemöta men fortsatt kvalitetsarbete krävs för att utveckla hälso- och sjukvårdspersonalens kulturkompetens. / Background: The amount of immigrant women in Sweden has increased which challenges midwives in work affected by linguistic and cultural barriers. These barriers are for immigrant women risk factors for unequal care and higher morbidity and mortality. The midwife can enable supportive communication by using interpreters, body language and by being present. Cultural barriers demand that the midwife is culturally aware and has an open mind towards the woman and her cultural background. Aim: To describe the experiences of midwives supporting women during childbirth with linguistic and cultural barriers. Method: A qualitative inductive design was used. Twelve individual, semistructured interviews were implemented. A manifest content analysis was used. Result: The result brought forth four main categories: the midwife´s experiences of linguistic barriers, the midwife´s experiences of cultural barriers, the midwife´s difficulties regarding equal care and desire for the future. The result showed that linguistic barriers were larger obstacles than cultural barriers in encounters with immigrant women and that these barriers make it difficult to offer equal care if not bridged.  Communication aids were described as using interpreters and body language. A desire was raised regarding developing preexisting tools for communication and implementing cultural bilingual doulas in birth care. Conclusion: Linguistic barriers are said to be the most difficult to manage but are enabled by using interpreters, body language and presence in the room. Cultural barriers are described as more easily managed but continuous quality management is required to develop the cultural competence of the health care staff.