ABSTRACT
Inclusive health care that allows patients to be autonomous decision-makers with regard to their own health has become an essential part of many countries' health care policies. Minority and immigrant populations are more likely to experience less patient involvement, especially during medical encounters. Even though in many parts of the world shared decision-making and related communication processes have been commonly accepted and advocated in clinical practice, they might still not be universally accepted and experienced by different cultures. This chapter aims at examining cultural differences in communication and decision-related behaviors that are likely to occur during medical consultations among Albanian- and Serbian-speaking immigrants in Switzerland who are suffering from back pain. Severity of back pain was one of the outcomes that was analyzed for this study. Participants were asked to indicate the intensity of their back pain on a scale from 0 to 6 at the moment they were responding to the questionnaire.
