Developing a Health Literacy intervention to optimising cardiac secondary prevention adherence among people from a culturally and linguistically diverse background

CVD affects over half a billion people worldwide but not always equally. The morbidity and mortality impact of CVD is higher in some populations, including Culturally and Linguistically diverse (CALD) populations in high income countries. Many factors can play a role in these disparities, including social and genetic factors. One way to prevent further cardiovascular complications is cardiac secondary prevention. Secondary prevention of CVD is defined as ‘strategies implemented by a patient and/or health care practitioner that are intended to lower the risk of a subsequent cardiovascular event in patients with documented atherosclerotic CVD. CALD communities are also at a higher risk of having low health literacy leading to barriers in accessing appropriate care, information and support during their CVD journey. To help CALD patients adhere to secondary prevention recommendations, adequate strategies need to be implemented. These difficulties can be addressed with multidisciplinary and culturally-sensitive interventions aimed at health literacy-related barriers. In order to understand the barriers and enablers to secondary prevention among CALD groups, we will be running focus groups with participants from culturally diverse backgrounds. The student’s role will involve co-facilitation of one focus group, which will be recorded and taped verbatim. The student will transcribe and thematically analyse the focus group data using Braun and Clarke’s methods to identify the themes related to suggested interventions that the participant may have identified. The student will choose one intervention to develop further, so that it is ready for testing in a future study. This development will involve a rapid evidence search, development of a program logic model, design of a plan to evaluate the feasibility and implementability of the intervention, and preparation of a research protocol for submission to an ethics committee. The student will be based at the Victorian Heart Institute, Monash University, Clayton