The "Listen In" Approach: A Novel Early-Phase Method to Inform Intervention Adaptation

Adaptations of behavioral interventions can optimize the health impact for minoritized groups, including racial and ethnic minorities. While cultural adaptation frameworks exist, there is no singular approach to identifying the contexts that likely matter during early-phase intervention development, outside of those exclusive to a cultural frame. We developed the "Listen In" approach to address this gap; "Listen In" involves a series of steps, resulting in two levels of analysis, that increase an understanding of the target population and inform intervention adaptation.

We applied "Listen In" to explore how context interfaced with core intervention targets of Goal-focused Emotion-regulation Therapy (developed for young adult testicular cancer survivors) among Latino participants.

Thirty-six hours of audio-recorded intervention sessions from a pilot trial across nine participants (all Latino, aged 20-33) were analyzed. Latino cultural values were found to be an important context for goal navigation processes directly and indirectly. For example, participants described family as being an important value and identified family as having an impact on goal achievement. Recommendations for intervention adaptation, then, included offering the opportunity to invite family into conversations around goal navigation.

An integration of the cultural context, facilitated by using the "Listen In" approach, enhanced our understanding of how GET can be adapted for young Latino survivors in the present study. "Listen In" may be a valuable approach to highlighting nuanced contexts in which intervention mechanisms are enacted. Future researchers may apply this method to help inform early-phase evidence-based intervention adaptations.