SUMMARY

In recent years, Spain has been found to be the country within the European Union that receives the largest amount of immigrants and already in the year 2006 the immigrant population represented the 6.87% of the whole population.

In order of frequency, the foreigners come from Asian, African, Non-EU countries, Latin-American countries, North America and Oceania. And the communities in which the immigrants settle down the most are Catalonia, Madrid and Valencia.

We divide the immigrant-receiving societies in the following ranges: Assimilative, Separative and Intercultural, although most of times the receiving societies mix up different features of theirs.

According to the Spanish Immigration Law of 2000, the only requirement for the immigrants to be assisted within the scope of the National Health Service is to be registered in the municipality in which they reside. Besides, it also recognizes the right to public emergency assistance in cases of serious illnesses or accidents and for the pregnant and under-age people.

As for the psychological repercussions of the immigration, we know that this implies losses and strains for all that is left behind, which gives rise to the migratory grief. This differentiates itself from other griefs through its characteristics of bias, recurrence and because it is a multiple grief. If the defense mechanisms to overcome the migratory grief do not work and the immigrant has anxious, depressive, somatic and dissociative symptoms we determine that he/she suffers from what is been called the Ulysses Syndrome.

When we work with migratory groups it is essential to individualize to avoid falling in the generalization and the excessive education. To this purpose, it is necessary to know, in outline, some sociocultural differences that are exposed with more detail in the article. Also, it will be useful for us to value the stressful factors that will act before, during and after the migratory process.

The pathologies that can be suffered by the most vulnerable immigrant population and on which we should know some peculiarities are: the reactive and adaptation illnesses, the problems of reproductive and sexual health and, the imported and genetic illnesses.

The difficulty of accessing to healthcare services, the lack of awareness on the migratory process as a risk factor and the communicative barriers between healthcare professionals and patients can lead to an unsuitable assistance. For this reason, a series of actions focused from a multidisciplinar level that will help to improve the assistance to immigrant patients are exposed in this article.