The difficulties of recruiting participants from a non-dominant culture into palliative care research

摘要

Recruitment of participants from minority cultures is problematic for any type of research; but morenparticularly for palliative care research however, because of the perceived additional vulnerability ofnparticipants who are facing the end of their life. Even though the goal of palliative care is to improve thenquality of the remaining life, the processes involving such vulnerable people require careful consideration.nThis consideration is doubly important when participants come from minority cultures. This studyndiscusses the recruitment difficulties in a study focusing on the palliative care needs of Chinese people innAustralia. Despite being part of Australian society for most of its’ colonized history, Chinese people remainna minority culture and place great importance on their particular culture and traditions. Significantnrecruitment issues were experienced due to language and cultural constraints, including that death andndying are taboo subjects. The access and recruitment processes utilized in this research are discussednas well as diverse strategies used to achieve involvement.