Barriers and solutions for the recruitment and methodology of conducting dementia research in British ethnic minorities: A systematic review

Problem

At present, there is no collation of information that details the existing recruitment and methodological issues researchers face and the potential solutions that could be implemented when including ethnic minority groups within dementia research. Without a compilation of such information a systematic set of standardised solutions and procedures to negate existing issues cannot be devised. Furthermore, future researchers may continue to face the same issues, with no standard protocol to measure their methodology against. Therefore, we decided to conduct a systematic review of the barriers and solutions for the recruitment and methodology of conducting dementia research in British ethnic minorities.

Approach

We conducted a systematic review, including publications detailing dementia research conducted in the UK, qualitative and quantitative, that included any ethnic minority group. Studies that included UK dementia patients or family and carers or healthcare professionals working with dementia patients were eligible for inclusion and we did not exclude publications based on methodology or year of publication. The publications were read and information extracted regarding the recruitment and methodological issues faced by the researchers, along with any solutions to these issues they may have considered. Once all publications were read through the extracted information was combined and repeated issues and solutions removed, resulting in a collation of singular recruitment and methodological issues and solutions, listed in a standardised format. Related recruitment and methodological issues were grouped into overarching themes and subthemes and related solutions were attributed to these issues.

Findings

We identified 46 papers meeting our inclusion criteria of which 30 described methodological issues faced by the researchers regarding ethnic minorities. These were collated into six overarching broad themes, with their own individual subthemes; Attitudes and beliefs about dementia, recruitment process, data collection issues, practical issues, researcher characteristics and paucity of literature. These themes also allowed us to identify three areas that require intervention for improvement due to the nature of the issues identified: community and patient education, health services and researcher training. Extracts pertaining to solutions are currently being attributed to these three areas and individual themes on issues.

Consequences

Our review identified three areas that require improvement; community and patient education, health services and researcher training. Acknowledgement of these areas along with our collation of reported recruitment and methodological difficulties and potential solutions acts as a precursor for improving existing and developing new solutions within these areas. A review of these issues can also be utilised by future dementia researchers to identify any gaps in their own methodologies.