Public Health Research on Severe Mental Conditions Among Immigrant Communities in the United States: Strategies From a Qualitative Study with South Asian Immigrants in New York City.

INTRODUCTION

The study of severe mental conditions has primarily remained under the purview of basic and clinical research. Although global epidemiological data indicate that immigrant groups are at higher risk of these conditions, U.S. data are lacking. Qualitative studies can be an important first step to bring attention to understudied phenomena.

METHODS

This manuscript describes strategies used to conduct semi-structured, in-depth individual interviews on experiences and perceptions of severe mental conditions among South Asian individuals with psychiatric diagnoses (=21), family members (=11), and clinicians (=4) in New York City. These strategies were synthesized from the team's internal notes of adaptations during the study design and data collection, weekly debrief meetings during data analysis, and brainstorm sessions for this manuscript.

RESULTS

The main results of the study are reported elsewhere. This section focuses on lessons learned to improve immigrant participant interest and engagement, including the strengths and limitations of the healthcare setting; recruitment by a multilingual South Asian psychiatrist; interviews by non-clinical South Asian researchers selected for a variety of ages, genders, and languages; and the interview process and content.

DISCUSSION

Overall, these strategies show the feasibility of non-clinical researchers to collect high-quality data about severe mental conditions among immigrant communities, noting that the details of specific strategies and results will be particular to each immigrant community. Public health research on severe mental conditions is essential to understand and address the experiences of severe mental conditions among immigrant communities in the U.S.