People from ethnic minority groups engage in advance care planning less frequently.

Healthcare professionals (HCPs) in the UK report a lack of confidence, knowledge and skills in providing culturally sensitive end-of-life care for ethnic minority patients.

What are the key barriers and enablers for HCPs discussing resuscitation with patients and families from ethnic minority groups?

HCPs find conversations about deterioration and resuscitation challenging generally. Additional factors related to communication, religion and family increases this complexity when the patient is from an ethnic minority group.

HCPs felt more confident in having DNACPR discussions when they had existing knowledge about the patients’ religious, spiritual and cultural values and their confidence in initiating these conversations was developed through experience.

Envisaged ‘solutions’ for working in such uncertainty and emotionally challenging scenarios are often to increase confidence through factual ‘knowledge’. However, HCPs in this study sought to access reflective support, sharing of practices with colleagues and learning though simulated scenarios.

Future training needs to create opportunities for HCPs to share experiences of ‘best practice’, as well as recognise unintentional and unacknowledged biases, anxieties and prejudices about other cultural values and beliefs.