Conducting cross-cultural interviews and focus groups concerning healthcare with Polish migrants in the UK - Lessons from a study on organ donation

Abstract

Introduction: The Polish migrant community in the UK are under-represented in health and social care research, and are specifically under-researched with the issue of organ donation. Aim: To investigate the views of this community further, a qualitative research study examined the attitudes of Polish migrants toward organ donation. Material and methods: A series of interviews and min-focus groups were conducted with three sample groups. For the first sample, the inclusion criteria was broad, the only requirement was that the participants were English speaking Poles who lived in Luton. The second sample had a tighter inclusion criterion and excluded highly skilled professionals and students and included low skilled workers and parents of young families who were English or Polish speaking and lived in Luton and Dunstable. The third sample was solely post-war Polish migrants who lived in Luton and Dunstable. Results and discussion: This paper addresses some of the challenges overcome when researching the Polish migrant community, such as withdrawal in the recruitment phase of data collection and the use of Polish translators/interpreters. Conclusions: The study contributes toward an understanding of the use of Polish migrant communities in health research, use of professional translator/interpreter and whispered interpreters in health research and the challenges of researching organ donation within an under-represented community. Patient education and communication with UK Polish communities is an under-researched area. This study offers some insights into the challenges of engaging with a rapidly growing section of the UK population.