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. 2018 Apr 17;18(1):289.
doi: 10.1186/s12913-018-3026-9.

Dutch citizens of Turkish origin who utilize healthcare services in Turkey: a qualitative study on motives and contextual factors

Aydın Şekercan  1   2 , Anke J Woudstra  3 , Ron J G Peters  4 , Majda Lamkaddem  3 , Seval Akgün  5 , Marie-Louise Essink-Bot  3
Affiliations

Dutch citizens of Turkish origin who utilize healthcare services in Turkey: a qualitative study on motives and contextual factors

Aydın Şekercan et al. BMC Health Serv Res. .

Abstract

Background: Dutch residents of Turkish origin frequently utilize healthcare in Turkey.

Methods: To investigate their motives for doing so, we conducted a qualitative study among these healthcare users using semi-structured interviews. We complemented this with informal conversations with Turkish healthcare providers and observations at the registration offices and waiting rooms of outpatient clinics in several Turkish hospitals.

Results: Respondents believed their perceived needs for referral to specialist care and diagnostic assessments to quantify their health were not being met in the Netherlands.

Conclusions: These mismatches in expectations of what constitutes "good care" led to dissatisfaction with Dutch primary care. Consequently, respondents utilized healthcare in Turkey if the opportunity arose, and were encouraged in this by their social networks. Establishing cross-border communication between healthcare providers is necessary, because there is currently no continuity of care for cross-border patients.

Keywords: Accessibility; Cross-border care; Ethnicity; Health services research; Medical tourism; Turkish origin.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Although Dutch law (the Medical Research Involving Human Subjects Act) does not require ethics approval and participant consent for this type of interview study, the respondents were asked to give verbal consent at the start of the interview and written consent afterwards. Additionally, we ensured confidentiality of the data and guaranteed that no data could be traced to individual persons or healthcare providers, and made sure each respondent was adequately informed of the aims and methods of the study.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Healthcare consumption in the country of origin by residents of non-Western origin
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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