Abstract Background Newly arrived immigrant patients who frequently use primary health care resources have difficulties in verbal communication. Also, they have a system of beliefs related to health and disease that makes difficult for health care professionals to comprehend their reasons for consultation, especially when consulting for somatic manifestations. Consequently, this is an important barrier to achieve optimum care to these groups. The current project has two main objectives: 1. To define the different stressors, the level of distress perceived, and its impact in terms of discomfort and somatisation affecting the main communities of immigrants in our area, and 2. To identify the characteristics of cross-cultural competence of primary health care professionals to best approach these reasons for consultation. Methods/Design It will be a transversal, observational, multicentre, qualitative-quantitative study in a sample of 980 people from the five main non-European Union immigrant communities residing in Catalonia: Maghrebis, Sub-Saharans, Andean South Americans, Hindustanis, and Chinese. Sociodemographic data, level of distress, information on the different stressors and their somatic manifestations will be collected in specific questionnaires. Through a semi-structured interview and qualitative methodology, it will be studied the relation between somatic manifestations and particular beliefs of each group and how these are associated with the processes of disease and seeking for care. A qualitative methodology based on individual interviews centred on critical incidents, focal groups and in situ questionnaires will be used to study the cross-cultural competences of the professionals. Discussion It is expected a high level of chronic stress associated with the level of somatisations in the different non-European Union immigrant communities. The results will provide better knowledge of these populations and will improve the comprehension and the efficacy of the health care providers in prevention, communication, care management and management of resources.