Recruitment and methodological issues in conducting dementia research in British ethnic minorities: A qualitative systematic review

Objective: Identifying existing recruitment and methodological issues within dementia research conducted in UK studies that included ethnic minorities.
Methods: We searched for and included any publication detailing dementia research in the UK that included any ethnic minority. The search results and all titles and abstracts were screened according to the inclusion criteria, followed by screening of the full texts. We extracted data regarding the recruitment and methodological issues faced by the researchers. This data was combined and listed and related issues were grouped into overarching themes and subthemes.
Results: Of 52 publications suitable for analysis, 33 provided data collated into six themes; attitudes and beliefs about dementia in ethnic minority communities, recruitment process, data collection issues, practical issues, researcher characteristics and lack of published research and normative data. These themes allowed us to identify three areas responsible for addressing these recruitment and methodological issues; community and patient education, health services and researchers’ training.
Conclusions: This is the first review identifying recruitment and methodological issues within UK dementia research that included ethnic minorities. We now have a compilation of reported existing issues and a framework of areas responsible for addressing them and devising solutions.