Barriers and Facilitators to Deaf Trauma Survivors\u27 Help-Seeking Behavior: Lessons for Behavioral Clinical Trials Research

Deaf individuals experience significant obstacles to participating in behavioral health research when careful consideration is not given to accessibility during the design of study methodology. To inform such considerations, we conducted an exploratory secondary analysis of a mixed-methods study that originally explored 16 Deaf trauma survivors\u27 help-seeking experiences. Our objective was to identify key findings and qualitative themes from consumers\u27 own words that could be applied to the design of behavioral clinical trials methodology. In many ways, the themes that emerged were not wholly dissimilar from the general preferences of members 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 sociolinguistic minority population, given Deaf people\u27s 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