Protecting the sexual and reproductive health of immigrant women in Italy: building relationships of care and trust through a patient-centered approach

The advancement of sexual and reproductive healthcare for all women and the implementation of their respective rights can be achieved through adopting measures tailored to the specific needs of immigrant women; such measures should be aimed at overcoming linguistic, cultural, administrative, bureaucratic, and socio-economic barriers that hinder access to services and constrain their effective accessibility, with obvious implications for sexual and reproductive health. It is essential to develop prevention, diagnosis, and treatment pathways that consider cultural specificities while simultaneously promoting the autonomy of women: only a patient-centered approach, aimed at accommodating and providing appropriate responses to the patient’s cultural specificities, within the framework of fundamental rights and freedoms whilst taking into account the irreducibility of the person to their culture of origin, can sanction the creation of the conditions required for the pursuit of the best interests of the individual, whilst respecting their autonomy and dignity.