What can be done to attract more South Asian people to self-management courses? asks Coventry researcher
A Coventry-based researcher hopes to find out why so few people from South Asian backgrounds with arthritis, attend free self-help classes aimed at helping them manage their condition.
Alison Hipwell, a PhD student at Coventry University, has been awarded the Arthritis Research Campaign’s prestigious Educational Research Fellowship of almost £111,000 over three years, to carry out this important research.
Ms Hipwell is from the Applied Research Centre for Health & Lifestyle Interventions in Self-management, which has been evaluating the Expert Patients Programme (EPP) run by the NHS, and a similar scheme called Challenging Arthritis run by Arthritis Care, since the early 1990s. Ms Hipwell wants to establish why these educational self-management classes fail to attract people from South Asian backgrounds.
Self-management courses offer people with long-term health conditions such as arthritis, the chance to take part in self-management classes. Over several weeks patients are given the skills and confidence to cope with their conditions. EPP is currently being rolled out across the country.
The catalyst for the current research occurred in a deprived part of Coventry, one of the areas chosen to host the pilot EPP, when no-one from a South Asian background (India, Bangladesh and Pakistan) attended the course. Ms Hipwell plans to contact all Primary Care Trusts in England and Arthritis Care, to find out about the minority ethnic attendance on the courses they run. “This research will establish the extent of under-representation for the first time and provide information about why this is the case,” explained Ms Hipwell.
She will talk to English and Punjabi-speaking South Asian people about their experiences of living with rheumatoid and osteoarthritis, their attitudes towards the concept of self-management and their educational preferences.
“Difficulties with language, and religious and cultural differences may all play a part,” explained Ms Hipwell. “For example sometimes older South Asian people may not speak English or write Punjabi. Some South Asian people may not feel self-management fits with their religious beliefs, if for instance, they hold a fatalistic approach to life and destiny. In terms of cultural differences, healthy eating advice on eating boiled potatoes over chips, for example, may not be relevant to some South Asian people, as they might not eat either.
The solution may be to provide some kind of cultural awareness training for course tutors, or to set up special classes for South Asian people run by South Asian tutors, added Ms Hipwell.
Findings will be shared among health professionals and patients to ensure that best practice reaches patients.
