Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2018 Sep 6;28(Suppl 2):485-492.
doi: 10.18865/ed.28.S2.485. eCollection 2018.

An Assets-Based Approach to Co-Producing a Culturally Adapted Family Intervention (CaFI) with African Caribbeans Diagnosed with Schizophrenia and Their Families

Dawn Edge  1 , Paul Grey  2
Affiliations

An Assets-Based Approach to Co-Producing a Culturally Adapted Family Intervention (CaFI) with African Caribbeans Diagnosed with Schizophrenia and Their Families

Dawn Edge et al. Ethn Dis. .

Abstract

Objective: To determine how to improve the cultural appropriateness and acceptability of an extant evidence-based model of family intervention (FI), a form of 'talking treatment,' for use with African Caribbean service users diagnosed with schizophrenia and their families.

Design: Community partnered participatory research (CPPR) using four focus groups comprising 31 key stakeholders.

Setting: Community locations and National Health Service (NHS) mental health care settings in northwest England, UK.

Participants: African Caribbean service users (n=10), family members, caregivers and advocates (n=14) and health care professionals (n=7).

Results: According to participants, components of the extant model of FI were valid but required additional items (such as racism and discrimination and different models of mental health and illness) to improve cultural appropriateness. Additionally, emphasis was placed on developing a new ethos of delivery, which participants called 'shared learning.' This approach explicitly acknowledges that power imbalances are likely to be magnified where delivery of interventions involves White therapists and Black clients. In this context, therapists' cultural competence was regarded as fundamental for successful therapeutic engagement and outcomes.

Conclusions: Despite being labelled 'hard-to-reach' by mainstream mental health services and under-represented in research, our experience suggests that, given the opportunity, members of the African Caribbean community were highly motivated to engage in all aspects of research. Participating in research related to schizophrenia, a highly stigmatized condition, suggests CPPR approaches might prove fruitful in developing interventions to address other health conditions that disproportionately affect members of this community.

Keywords: African Caribbean; Community Partnered Participatory Research (CPPR); Ethnicity; Health Disparities; Minority Mental Health; Psychosis; Schizophrenia.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. Working example of problem solving and goal planning.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health Schizophrenia: The NICE Guidelines on Core Interventions in the Treatment and Management of Schizophrenia in Adults in Primary and Secondary Care (updated edition). National Clinical Guideline Number 82. London: The British Psychological Society and The Royal College of Psychiatrists; 2009.
    1. Nazroo J, King M. Psychosis - symptoms and estimated rates. In: Sproston K, Nazroo J, eds. Ethnic Minority Psychiatric Illness Rates (EMPIRIC). London: The Stationery Office; 2002:47.
    1. American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM-IV-TR. 4th ed Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association; 2000.
    1. Fearon P, Kirkbride JB, Morgan C, et al. ; AESOP Study Group . Incidence of schizophrenia and other psychoses in ethnic minority groups: results from the MRC AESOP Study. Psychol Med. 2006;36(11):1541-1550. 10.1017/S0033291706008774 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bhui K, Stansfeld S, Hull S, Priebe S, Mole F, Feder G. Ethnic variations in pathways to and use of specialist mental health services in the UK. Systematic review. Br J Psychiatry. 2003;182(2):105-116. 10.1192/bjp.182.2.105 - DOI - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources