Moving toward culturally sensitive services for Indigenous people: a non-Indigenous mental health nursing perspective

Indigenous psychiatric morbidity, whilst culturally different in presentation to white communities has been suggested to run at a mean prevalence rate of 13.5% of the major disorders found in non-Indigenous communities. This paper discusses the socio-political and cross cultural issues to do with mental health for Australian Indigenous from a non-Indigenous perspective. The paper is particularly concerned with the effects of racism on Indigenous mental health and how racism effectively limits Indigenous people from full participation in the pluralist mainstream. Racism has been seen to be a major contributor to mental illness. The scope of this paper addresses the issue of transforming mainstream culture as well as highlighting the need for protection, participation and collaborative involvement in mental health service delivery.