 | The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
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| The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
Annie Steinberg, MD, Psychiatry and Pediatrics, University of PA School of Medicine, 3535 Market STreet, 9th floor, Deafness and Family Communication Center, narberth, PA 19072, 215 590 7665, drannie@mail.med.upenn.edu, Marjorie F. Goldstein, PhD, National Development and Research Institutes, Inc, 71 West 23 Street, New York, NY 10010, and Elizabeth A. Eckhardt, CSW, Deaf Research Projects, National Development & Research Institutes, Inc., 71 West 23rd Street, 8th Floor, New York, NY 10010.
Minority communities have expressed concern that research should be conducted with sufficient cross-cultural sensitivity to ensure that the results will not contribute to negative stereotyping. In mental health, the cultural mesh between target community norms and methodologies is critical to ensure the validity of the results.
Deaf community members, like members of racial and ethnic minorities, share a subculture distinct from that of the majority. Given the differences between hearing and deaf culture, life experiences, and the dimensions of the language that captures these experiences, differences in the experience of and communication about mental health disorders can be expected. For example, persons who are Deaf often have different ways of expressing internal experiences, such as depression, anxiety, and loneliness, and hallucinations. Conceptual frameworks typically used in diagnostic assessments, such as time periods during which symptoms were experienced, specific indicators of severity of illness, algorithmic constructions of particular diagnoses, and hierarchical question sequences in diagnostic instruments, may not translate easily into a visual and spatial language, and, therefore, may need to be modified or even re-invented.
This paper will review the efforts in three distinct studies to devise culturally sound translation solutions that would honor the original English instrument’s questions. We will describe the perils and pitfalls of translation research for a Deaf community, which exemplifies the cross-cultural issues that arise more generally, in the methodology of sensitive mental health service research with other cultural minority communities.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Access, Adult and Child Mental Health
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.