Traumatic stress intervention research for the South Asian American diaspora: A methodological protocol article

The South Asian American (SAA) community often encounters substantial traumas and reports distress after these experiences. Simultaneously, many SAAs underutilize mental health services. Two significant factors contributing to such disparities in access to care are the lack of (a) culturally responsive traumatic stress interventions for SAAs and (b) SAA-specific methodological structures to be used in traumatic stress intervention research.

Thus, we outline a methodological protocol article based on process-oriented insights to develop culturally responsive traumatic stress interventions for SAAs, focusing on centering community voices to understand the experience of trauma and its impacts within the cultural context of this community.

We delineated steps, considerations, and lessons that we learned in the process, specifically how to (a) develop a collaborative team with a specific range of stakeholders and to integrate their input, (b) create and implement a study protocol and data management plan, and (c) devise and roll out a culturally informed participant recruitment and retention protocol.

Using our work in this community as an example, we highlight the strengths of the methodological approach taken and areas that would be important to address in future work with SAAs. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).