Barriers and facilitators to deaf trauma survivors' help-seeking behavior: Lessons for behavioral clinical trials research

Abstract

Deaf individuals experience significant obstacles to participating in behavioral health research when careful consideration is not given to accessibility during the design of studymethodology. To informsuch considerations, we conducted an exploratory secondary analysis of amixed-methods study that originally explored 16 Deaf trauma survivors' help-seeking experiences. Our objective was to identify key findings and qualitative themes from consumers' own words that could be applied to the design of behavioral clinical trialsmethodology. Inmany ways, the themes that emerged were not wholly dissimilar from the general preferences ofmembers of other sociolinguistic minority groups-a need for communication access, empathy, respect, strict confidentiality procedures, trust, and transparency of the research process. Yet, how these themes are applied to the inclusion of Deaf research participants is distinct from any other sociolinguisticminority population, given Deaf people's unique sensory and linguistic characteristics.We summarize our findings in a preliminary "Checklist for Designing Deaf Behavioral Clinical Trials" to operationalize the steps researchers can take to apply Deaf-friendly approaches in their empirical work.