Recruitment of Refugees for Health Research: A Qualitative Study to Add Refugees' Perspectives.
Research is needed to understand refugees' health challenges and barriers to accessing health services during settlement. However, there are practical and ethical challenges for engaging refugees as participants. Despite this, there have been no studies to date specifically investigating refugee perspectives on factors affecting engagement in health research. Language-concordant focus groups in British Columbia, Canada, with four government-assisted refugee language groups (Farsi/Dari, Somali, Karen, Arabic) inquired about willingness to participate in health research. Twenty-three variables associated with the willingness of refugees to participate in health research were elicited. Variables related to research design included recruitment strategies, characteristics of the research team members and the nature of the research. Variables related to individual participants included demographic features such as gender and education, attitudes towards research and previous experience with research. This research can be used to increase opportunities for refugees' engagement in research and includes recommendations for subgroups of refugees that may have more difficulties engaging in research.
Department of Family Practice, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z3, Canada. Patricia.s.gabriel@gmail.com.
Patricia
P
Gabriel
Department of Family and Emergency Medicine, University of Montreal, Montreal, QC H3T 1J4, Canada. januszk@gmail.com.
Janusz
J
Kaczorowski
Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6, Canada. nsb4@sfu.ca.
Nicole
N
Berry
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001955:British Columbia; D003144:Communication Barriers; D054521:Cultural Competency; D005260:Female; D017144:Focus Groups; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D018579:Patient Selection / Q000941:ethics; D036301:Qualitative Research; D012036:Refugees / Q000523:psychology; D055815:Young Adult
ethics; patient; qualitative research; recruitment; refugee; research