Seeking paths to culturally competent health care: lessons from two Saskatchewan Aboriginal communities

The Southern Saskatchewan/Urban Aboriginal Health Coalition is an interdisciplinary, intersectoral team of researchers and communities dedicated to exploring culturally respectful care in Aboriginal communities. Through a community-based research approach, the communities and the Coalition used sharing circles to determine the key elements that 2 Saskatchewan Aboriginal communities see as requisite for culturally competent care. Through triangulation and thematic analysis, 9 initial themes and 4 broad thematic groupings were derived. The lessons from this study could inform further research with these communities and other culturally diverse groups with respect to cultural competency in terms of both health-care providers and health services.