Adapting a measure of acculturation for cross-cultural research

Measures of psychological acculturation: a review

This article reviews conceptual and methodological issues in the measurement of psychological acculturation. The major issues involve the question of dimensionality and the assessment of specific domains of cultural change. Bidimensional scales that cover both overt and internal domains are more informative for the assessment of general levels of psychological acculturation. The validity of such scales must be examined in terms of the actual exposure of individuals to and involvement in each culture, and the influence of sociocultural factors on the course of acculturation. The parallel application of qualitative and quantitative methods may be useful for validity studies. The complementary use of emic and etic approaches will enhance the psychometric soundness of acculturation scales.

Attitudes of Critically Ill Filipino Patients and Their Families Toward Advance Directives

• Background Advance directives are important but often underused tools in critical care. Healthcare professionals’ understanding of how culture influences attitudes toward advance directives can improve knowledge and completion of these documents.

• Objective To understand the attitudes of critically ill Filipino American patients and their families toward advance directives.

• Methods A descriptive, correlational, cross-sectional study with a convenience sample of 22 Filipino American patients and 22 Filipino American family members at a West Coast medical center. All patients were admitted for cardiac surgery or cardiac interventions. Participants were interviewed with the Advance Directive Attitude Survey and A Short Acculturation Scale for Filipino Americans.

• Results Family members’ scores were significantly more positive than patients’ scores on the attitude survey (P = .01). Family members were more American acculturated than were patients (P = .001). Family members with more education had more positive attitudes toward advance directives (P = .02). Only 2 patients (and no family members) had completed an advance directive before the study. Only 27.3% of family members had prior knowledge of advance directives.

• Conclusion Overall attitudes toward advance directives were positive; however, the completion rate and knowledge of advance directives were low. Participants may have been saying what they thought the researcher wanted to hear in order to avoid disagreement. Such behavior could partly explain the positive attitudes of the Filipino Americans toward advance directives. Further research is warranted to understand how to increase completion rates for advance directives among Filipino Americans.

Rigor in cross-cultural nursing research

With the increasing number of cross-cultural nursing studies, many scholars have suggested methods for conducting cross-cultural research. However, rigor in cross-cultural research has rarely been addressed. In this paper, five evaluation criteria for rigor in cross-cultural nursing research are proposed based on a review of the literature related to cross-cultural research published from 1965 to 2003. The proposed evaluation criteria include: (a) cultural relevance; (b) contextuality; (c) appropriateness; (d) mutual respect; and (e) flexibility. We advocate that these evaluation criteria be used to ensure rigor of cross-cultural nursing research, whether quantitative or qualitative work.

Challenges and strategies for conducting survey and focus group research with culturally diverse groups

The professions represented by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association are serving a wide range of populations as diversity in the United States continues to grow rapidly. This article offers tentative guidance for and invites an open dialogue with other researchers interested in culturally sensitive research issues. Specifically, as the professions adopt an increasingly global perspective, it is likely that researchers will need to acquire skills in conducting research within culturally diverse populations. Within this article, research scenarios are discussed, in particular, methods for survey, interview, and focus groups. Topics such as preparing a research instrument, gaining access to clients, and effectively utilizing interpreters are presented. In brief, this article is designed as a beginning conversation about an increasingly important topic: conducting culturally sensitive research in communication disorders.