Role of Cultural Beliefs, Religion, and Spirituality in Mental Health and/or Service Utilization among Immigrants in Canada: A Scoping Review

This paper uses Arksey and O'Malley's (2005) framework for conducting scoping reviews to examine 25 years of Canadian literature to understand the importance of cultural beliefs, religion, and spirituality in the context of immigrant mental health and/or service utilization. A review of 24 selected articles revealed 4 broad areas relative to the role of religion, spirituality, and culture in these contexts. Based on the findings the authors suggest that in increasingly diverse societies like Canada there is an urgent need for mental health professionals to take into account in their practice their service users’ cultural, religious, and spiritual beliefs.