The Multiple Roles of Interpreters in Qualitative Research With Migrant Populations in Their Native Language

Purpose: The qualitative research issues of gaining entree, recruitment, building trust, informed consent, confidentiality, and accurate data interpretation present special challenges for including participants who are culturally and/or linguistically different from the researcher. Consequently, these participants are often excluded from research studies. In addition, differences between this population and health care providers can limit understanding and create barriers to professional care. Therefore it is important to understand the perspective and needs of the migrant community to facilitate culturally responsive care and reduce health disparities. The purpose of this presentation is to describe the relationship between the researcher and interpreters employing innovative strategies and methods to manage cultural and linguistic communication challenges, contain costs, and facilitate the qualitative research process with migrant populations in their native language, and to promote inclusion of more native-speaking migrant populations in the research.

Methods: The interpreters were experts in Dominican culture, and acted as cultural brokers in building trust between the researcher and the participants. Lessons were learned while engaged in a descriptive qualitative research study about the health-related beliefs, practices and experiences of a convenience sample of 15 Spanish-speaking adults who self-identified as Dominicans living in the United States for six months or more. Issues were explored in three focus groups, assisted by trained culturally appropriate interpreters who also acted as cultural brokers between the researcher and the participants. The focus groups were audio-taped in Spanish, and translated to the contextually equivalent meaning in English. A second interpreter compared the Spanish tapes and the English transcripts for accuracy in translation. The interpreters assisted with study design, recruitment, obtaining consent, maintaining confidentiality, debriefing about focus group dynamics, and ways to improve each session.

Results: Interpreters facilitated access to a group that was under-represented in the literature and allowed the researcher to have a wider range and number of participants. Careful preparation of the selected interpreters who are culturally similar to potential participants, maintaining an awareness of the ways in which data could be affected when interpreters assist in focus groups, and employing innovative translation methods, supported the collection of reliable, valid and rich data, as well as sensitive data interpretation, lending strength to the study. Interpreters acted as community leaders and advocates, ensuring the results from this study were presented and translated into practice for the local hospital’s community health needs assessment and implementation plan to improve the quality of care for this population.

Conclusion: It is recommended that specially trained culturally appropriate interpreters be involved in the study design, and valued as significant contributors to facilitate the research process from beginning to end. Design and implementation challenges from this study and strategies and methods used to transcend cultural and linguistic barriers may guide others in planning research with similar populations.