How young people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds experience mental health: some insights for mental health nurses

摘要

This article reports on a part of a study which looked at the mental health ofculturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) young people. The research sought to learnfrom CALD young people, carers, and service providers experiences relevant to themental health of this group of young people. The ultimate goal was to gain insights thatwould inform government policy, service providers, ethnic communities and mostimportantly the young people themselves. To this end, qualitative interviews wereundertaken with 123 CALD young people, 41 carers and 14 mental health serviceproviders in Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia.Only one aspect of the study will be dealt with here, namely the views of theyoung CALD participants, which included risk factors, coping strategies andrecommendations about how they could be supported in their struggle to maintainmental health. One of the most important findings of the study relates to the resilienceof these young people and an insight into the strategies that they used to cope. Theefforts of these young people to assist us in our attempts to understand their situationdeserve to be rewarded by improvements in the care that we provide. To this end thisarticle sets out to inform mental health nurses of the results of the study so that they willbe in a position to better understand the needs and strengths of their CALD clients andbe in a better position to work effectively with them.