Survey of the health needs and problems of Iranian students: how satisfied or dissatisfied they are with the University health service

The focus of this study was to identify and analyze information about the health care needs, degree of satisfaction or dissatisfaction of international students from Iran with the health care services and what they perceive as the role of a university to help them with their health needs and the transcultural nursing care implications. The importance of this study stems from the fact that increasing numbers of international students are coming to the United States to further their education each year yet little is known about these students' cultural-specific health needs. An understanding of what the Iranian students identify as their health needs is basic for transcultural nurses in order to provide health care that is culturally specific to the needs of these students and to improve health care services on campuses. It was hypothesized that the greater the differences between the international students' culture and the American culture, the greater the indications of culture shock these students would exhibit and the greater would be their need for health and transcultural nursing care support to maintain themselves in the United States. The study utilized a descriptive approach and a survey design. A pilot tested interview guideline designed by the investigator consisted of open-ended questions was utilized for data collection. The sample consisted of 30 randomly selected Iranian students attending the University of Utah. The results of the study showed that the Iranian students identified their health care needs as increased stress, increased stomach problems, allergies, and accidents, all of which have been found to be affected adversely by states of stressfulness. The Iranian students indicated the university's role in helping them with their health needs as that of providing availability of modern medical facilities in which they could select the specialist they thought was appropriate for their specific problems. This was consistent with, the students listing the physician as the type of health care or service they liked and used in Iran. The study showed that two more Iranian students were dissatisfied than were satisfied, but even those satisfied had strong ideas as to how the service could be improved. The three main areas of stated dissatisfaction related to impersonal care, lack of a specialists, and cultural differences in the importance they placed on their health concerns. The uniformity in their cultural practices for certain health needs was so strong that responses of individuals not continuing those practices could be identified as those students having been in the U.S. the longest or whose parents were physicians, indicating acceptance of Western medical care. From this study several cultural differences were identified by the subjects as areas of increased stress which application of trans-cultural nursing care concepts could be used to improve the Iranian students' health care.