The evaluation of pre-hospital emergency care providers' attitudes towards refugees in Turkey

Background Health for all is one of the fundamental rights for eliminating inequalites. Within the scope of Sustainable Development Goals, health services should be provided to everyone without any discrimination regardlass of race, religion, political view, gender, economic and social status. The increase of violence in their home country caused about 3 million 666 thousand 59 people to flee to Turkey and they've been experiencing economic, social and cultural problems as well as a problem of acceptance and adaptation. We aimed to evaluate the attitudes of emergency healthcare providers towards refugees and their perception of social distance. Methods This is a methodological study conducted between January-February 2020. The study group consisted of 372 (77.5%) out of 480 healthcare professionals. Attitude towards refugees was evaluated with the Health Providers' Attitude Towards Refugees Scale (HPATRS) developed by the researchers. Questionnaire form included HPATRS and Social Distance Scale(SDS). The Cronbach's alpha value of HPATRS was 0.694. Multiple linear regression was used for multivariate analysis. Results The ages of the study group ranged between 18-60 while the mean age was 32.15 ± 7.50 and 55.1% were female. Of the study group, 50.8% scored below the mean score from HPATRS. Multivariate analysis showed that, having language difficulties, having a master's degree and above and having high social distance was related to negative attitude towards refugees. (F: 7.567 p < 0.001 R²: 0.195). The social distance level was found to be the most important determinant in attitude (β: 0.343). Conclusions The attitude towards refugees in emergency care providers were thought to be not positive enough to eliminate the inequalities. It was concluded that; having a master's degree and above, having more social distance and having language difficulties were risk factors for a negative attitude towards refugees. Key messages As the first responders, emergency workers’ attitudes towards refugees is an important issue to be addressed in eliminating health inequalities. Mass media campaigns should be used to reduce social distance and trainings should be planned in order to develop positive attitudes towards refugees.