Terry Mitchell

Connection between the meaning of health and interaction with health professionals: caring for immigrant women

The meaning of health perceived by adult immigrant women in Canada is discussed from the perspectives of immigration, culture, and lived experience to understand their encounters with health care professionals. Authors base their findings on the thematic analysis of focus group data. Immigrant women viewed health as the outcome of a web of interactions between conditions of mental, physical, social, emotional, environmental, and spiritual well-being, appealing to both biomedical and phenomenological ideologies. Our analyses of qualitative data revealed that the disagreements noted by immigrant women when interacting with health care professionals were due to the discrepancies between their cultural views of health and the dominant biomedical perspective.

Survivor Dragon Boating: A Vehicle to Reclaim and Enhance Life After Treatment for Breast Cancer

The authors investigated the psychosocial impact of dragon boat participation on women who have been treated for breast cancer. Open-ended qualitative interviews were completed by 10 new members recruited from two breast cancer survivor dragon boat teams. Our findings indicate that the womens experience of survivor dragon boating surpassed their expectations and offered them hope and increased strength and the ability to regain control of their lives. Key themes emerging from the in-depth interviews that encapsulate the experiences of women in their first season of dragon boating follow: awakening of the self, common bond, regaining control, being uplifted, and transcending the fear of death. The interview data support the emerging hypothesis that dragon boating is a vehicle for improving womens wellness and post-treatment qualityof life.

Learning Against the Grain: Reflections on the Challenges and Revelations of Studying Qualitative Research Methods in an Undergraduate Psychology Course

Undergraduate programs in psychology in Canada rarely, if ever, teach qualitative methods as an integral part of the undergraduate curriculum. When programs do offer qualitative methods courses, they are often single stand-alone courses without adequate institutional support. Given the scientific traditions of training within psychology, it is important to consider the epistemological and infrastructural challenges faced by undergraduate students in psychology when they are first introduced to qualitative methods. Three psychology students reflect, with their professor, on their experiences of learning qualitative methods in their senior years as undergraduates. The students reflect on the many challenges, both intellectual and practical, of learning against the grain within a discipline that is firmly rooted in positivism. The authors reflect on these challenges and insights gained from exercises, which position them as both the knower and known when conducting life history studies in which they participate as both interviewer and interviewee. The authors conclude with practical suggestions for incorporating qualitative research methods into the undergraduate curriculum and advocate for increased methodological pluralism within psychology programs.

From Patient to Participant: Enhancing the Validity and Ethics of Cancer Research through Participatory Research

Participatory health research involves a wide spectrum of participation from the population of study. We describe the participatory research processes of a large mixed method study on the psychosocial impact of dragon boating in individuals with breast cancer. In particular, we discuss the involvement of a Community Advisory Group (consisting of five breast cancer patients/survivors) in the development of the research study, data collection and analysis, and dissemination of the study results. We also outline the elements of a research workshop, in which 13 breast cancer patients/survivors were involved in the development of a provincial survey for the study. The purpose of this article is to share our experience of engaging cancer patients/survivors in a participatory research study. We discuss the value-based elements of participatory research (power sharing, voice and respect, reciprocity, and mutual benefit), and provide a case-based example of how these participatory elements were employed to potentially increase the validity of the survey instrument, to enhance the ethics of working with a cancer population, and ultimately contributed to a high survey response rate.

Re-evaluating resilience: from individual vulnerabilities to the strength of cultures and collectivities among indigenous communities

Abstract Current conceptual approaches to understanding indigenous resilience as an individual trait, as a predisposition to succeed despite adversity, fails to acknowledge the political, social, economic and environmental realities of indigenous communities and misdirects the responsibility away from governments and colonial policies and onto the individuals themselves. We seek to reformulate a concept of indigenous resilience that is not viewed as an internalised, individual attribute, but rather as the strength and power of the collective, cultural knowledge of indigenous communities. Despite centuries of colonial interference, indigenous knowledge and cultures have endured. We posit that it is the resilience of indigenous knowledge and the re-emergence of indigenous ways of knowing that will inform and invigorate the re-conscientisation and liberation of indigenous peoples in reclaiming and advancing the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health and well-being of their Nations.

Shifting Societal Attitudes: Examining the Effects of Perspective Taking on Attitudes toward and Derogation of the Poor

ABSTRACT People tend to hold negative attitudes about and derogate those in poverty to varying degrees, often relying on indivi-dualistic explanations of poverty that largely ignore systemic sources. This study (N = 208) examined a perspective-taking strategy that could be used to reduce distancing behaviors and negative attitudes toward the poor. Perspective takers distanced less and reported fewer negative attitudes than others. An additional finding was that men (n = 57) were more likely to derogate/distance than women, showed greater agreement with personal deficiency explanations for poverty, and reported stronger stereotypic attitudes toward people who are impoverished.