Using Participatory Learning & Action research to access and engage with 'hard to reach' migrants in primary healthcare research.

Background: Communication problems occur in general practice consultations when migrants and general practitioners do not share a common language and culture. Migrants' perspectives have rarely been included in the development of guidelines designed to ameliorate this. Considered 'hard-to-reach' on the basis of inaccessibility, language discordance and cultural difference, migrants have been consistently excluded from participation in primary healthcare research.

Involving migrants in the development of guidelines for communication in cross-cultural general practice consultations: a participatory learning and action research project.

Objective: The aim of this research was to involve migrants and other key stakeholders in a participatory dialogue to develop a guideline for enhancing communication in cross-cultural general practice consultations. In this paper, we focus on findings about the use of formal versus informal interpreters because dialogues about these issues emerged as central to the identification of recommendations for best practice.

Design: This qualitative case study involved a Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) research methodology.

A critical analysis of the implementation of service user involvement in primary care research and health service development using normalization process theory.

Background: There have been recent important advances in conceptualizing and operationalizing involvement in health research and health-care service development. However, problems persist in the field that impact on the scope for meaningful involvement to become a routine - normalized - way of working in primary care. In this review, we focus on current practice to critically interrogate factors known to be relevant for normalization - definition, enrolment, enactment and appraisal.

Arranging and negotiating the use of informal interpreters in general practice consultations: experiences of refugees and asylum seekers in the west of Ireland.

This paper focuses on the work involved for service users in arranging and negotiating the use of informal interpreters from their social networks for general practice consultations. The data are drawn from a participatory learning and action research study, carried out in the west of Ireland. Qualitative data were gathered using a peer researcher model from a 'hard to reach' community of Serbo-Croat and Russian refugees and asylum seekers (n=26).