Research lessons learned: occupational therapy with culturally diverse mothers of premature infants

Evaluation studies of the effectiveness of home-based occupational therapy are scarce but are needed to justify the impact of occupational therapy intervention. When the intervention is for persons from diverse cultural backgrounds, additional research challenges arise.

To share lessons learned in conducting home-based occupational therapy research with Canadian, and immigrant South Asian and Chinese mothers of premature infants in a large Canadian city.

Lessons learned were to implement a culturally sensitive recruitment process, change the research design to include more interviews and focus groups, and be aware of the need for culturally appropriate instruments.

Researchers need to be sensitized to the Western cultural values upon which most research designs and instrumentation are constructed. Involvement of a culturally diverse research team, openness to feedback, adaptability, and critical reflection on what is important to the cultural groups are among the suggestions for researchers planning home-based occupational therapy research with culturally diverse populations.