[Associations with Muslim patients in general practice surgeries--a survey among German general practicioners]

Due to the increasing numbers of Muslims in Germany(1)--about 4.3 million at the moment--more Muslim patients are medicated in the practices of family doctors. Their heterogeneous cultural and religious backgrounds are nontheless unknown and unfamiliar for the treating general practitioner. Based on the daily experiences of the latter and in order to capture their development of intercultural competence, in the present study a brainwriting with general practitioners was conducted to record their spontaneous associations with Muslim patients.

Individually and without exchange 90 general practitioners (66 male, 24 female) listed subjective thoughts regarding "Muslim patients" on a prepared sheet of paper. Additionally, sex, age, number of years as physician in a private practice and the frequency of treatment of Muslim patients in their own practice were requested. The content of the notes were evaluated using MAXQDA and were clustered in the categories of "language", "company", "violence", "men"/"women", "psychosomatic medicine", "compliance", "understanding of illness", "physical examination" and "head scarf".

The ideas listed show that the majority of interviewed general practitioners regarded the treatment of Muslim patients as difficult. They associate Muslim patients with communication problems, a different type of disease understanding and a fear of contact, which hampers the examination situation. Less frequently, positive associations and unproblematic examination situations were noted.

Due to a lack of knowledge about cultural and religious contexts Muslim patients are often described by using stereotypes. This underlines the necessity to foster intercultural competences and self-reflection in daily practice and its systematic inclusion in medical education.