End of life care - the importance of culture and ethnicity.

BACKGROUND Australia is a culturally and ethnically diverse country. Within such diversity there will be differing beliefs systems about death and dying. This may be a challenging prospect for health professionals. OBJECTIVE This article discusses how cultural diversity may impact care and provides some strategies for the general practitioner when considering the provision of end of life care. DISCUSSION This article does not attempt to provide GPs with a prescriptive approach to multicultural care, as this would run the risk of stereotyping individuals. Rather, it discusses the barriers to end of life care among different cultural and ethnic groups, and suggests ways in which to improve understanding of different cultural needs in end of life care.