Challenges of Joint Crisis Plans with Migrant Patients: Focus Groups with Mental Health Professionals and Interpreters

In mental health, joint crisis plans facilitate advance care planning between clinicians and patients who experience psychiatric crises. Little research focuses on advance care planning with migrants with mental health problems. This study investigated clinician and interpreter perspectives on the use of joint crisis plans in intercultural and multilingual settings. Focus groups were conducted: two with mental health clinicians (6 participants per group) and two with interpreters (5 to 6 participants per group). The participants in the study identified several challenges associated with using joint crisis plans for patients with a migration background: Diverging ideas about mental health etiologies and roles in decision-making processes; patients' fears of undesirable interferences between joint crisis plans and administrative procedures for residence permits; language barriers; and the collaboration with interpreters. However, interpreters are also found to play a central role by fostering patients' trust in the clinicians and the joint crisis plan.