Barriers and Facilitators to Accessing Digital Health Tools Faced by South Asian Canadians in Surrey, British Columbia: Community-Based Participatory Action Exploration Using Photovoice.

BACKGROUND: South Asian community members in Canada experience a higher burden of chronic disease than the general population. Digital health innovations provide a significant opportunity to address various health care challenges such as supporting patients in their disease self-management. However, South Asian community members are less likely to use digital tools for their health and face significant barriers in accessing them because of language or cultural factors. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to understand the barriers to and facilitators of digital health tool uptake experienced by South Asian community members residing in Canada. METHODS: This study used a qualitative community-based participatory action research approach. Residents from Surrey, British Columbia, Canada, who spoke 1 of 4 South Asian languages (Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu, or Tamil) were invited to participate in focus group discussions. A subsample of the participants were invited to use photovoice methods in greater depth to explore the research topics. RESULTS: A total of 197 participants consented to the focus group discussions, with 12 (6.1%) participating in the photovoice phase. The findings revealed several key obstacles (older age, lack of education, and poor digital health literacy) and facilitators (social support from family or community members and positive attitudes toward technology) to using digital health tools. CONCLUSIONS: The results support the value of using a community-based participatory action research approach and photovoice methods to engage the South Asian community in Canada to better understand digital health competencies and needs. There were several important implications for policy makers and future research, such as continued engagement of community leaders by health care providers and administrators to learn about attitudes and preferences.

Coping Styles, Aggression and Interpersonal Conflicts among Depressed and Non-Depressed People.

BACKGROUND: The present study compared people with depressive symptoms and people without depressive symptoms with reference to their coping styles, level of aggression and interpersonal conflicts. METHODS: A purposive sample of 128 people (64 depressed and 64 normal controls)was selected from four different teaching hospitals of Lahore. Both the groups were matched on four demographic levels i.e. age, gender, education and monthly income. Symptom Checklist-R was used to screen out depressed and non-depressed people. The Brief COPE, the Aggression Questionnaire and the Bergen Social Relationship Scale were used to assess coping styles, aggression and interpersonal conflicts respectively. The Independent t-test was used to compare the groups. Binary logistic Regression was also carried out to predict the role of research variables in causing depression. RESULTS: The results showed that level of aggression and interpersonal conflict was significantly more in people with depressive symptoms as compared to control group. On the other hand control group was using more adaptive coping styles than people with depressive symptoms but no difference was found in the use of maladaptive coping styles. CONCLUSION: The present findings revealed that coping styles, aggression and interpersonal conflicts play important role in depression. Therefore, these dimensions must be considered while dealing with the depressive patients. Implications for preventive work are also discussed in the light of previous researches.