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Catalogue of critical incidents

The following table provides an overview of the critical incidents collected in the six countries, organised by country, narrator and related sensitive zones.

All the critical incidents come from real experiences of either health professional workers (doctors, nurses, but also care givers and administrative staff), patients or relatives of patients, usually implying some challenges.  The situations were analysed together with the narrators according to the analysis grid developed by Margalit Cohen-Emerique that we have slightly modified.  Each incident starts with the description of what happened and how the narrator reacted, felt. These descriptions come directly from the narrators. For each incident we describe who were the actors (narrator and the person(s) provoking the shock) so you can have an idea of the socio-cultural context. This was not always easy, as often the narrators don’t have detailed knowledge about the other people in the situation.  However, the bulk of the work consists in unveiling the cultural values, norms that underlie the behaviour of the narrator and the other protagonist.  In exploring the “cultural references” of the narrator, health sector professionals have participated actively, helping us identify what their key values were that influenced the situation.  However, when we explore the cultural references of the other people, we are necessarily in the realm of hypothesis, as these people were not there with us when we analyzed the incidents.  Our job is to make the most elaborate hypothesis possible, but they do remain hypotheses and not complete certainties.  At this point we usually try to include references to general cultural domains, opening the perspectives offered by the situation, let’s say to learn about femininity or health in an intercultural perspective.

References Cohen-Emerique, Margalit (2015) Pour une approche interculturelle en travail social Théories et pratiques 2nd edition Rennes: PRESSES DE L’ÉCOLE DES HAUTES ÉTUDES EN SANTÉ PUBLIQUE Council of Europe (2016) Gender – Some key Concepts. Accessed on 5th October 2016 at http://www.coe.int/en/web/compass/gender Goldenberg, Jamie; Pyszczynski, Tom; Warnica, Gwendolyn M;, Landau, Mark; and Thomas, Lisa. (2006 September). Ambivalence Toward the Body: Death, Neuroticism, and the Flight From Physical Sensation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 32 (9), 1264-1277 Ross, L. (1977). The intuitive psychologist and his shortcomings: Distortions in the attribution process. In Berkowitz, L. Advances in experimental social psychology. 10. New York: Academic Press. pp. 173–220. Hofstede, Gert (1998). Masculinity and Femininity. The taboo dimension of national cultures. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications. Hofstede, Geert, Gert Jan Hofstede, Michael Minkov, 1998. “Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind,” Third Revised Edition, McGrawHill 2010, ISBN 0-07-166418-1. © Geert Hofstede B.V.