Enabling equity for minority ethnic unpaid and family carers: Cultural acceptability of the Carer Support Needs Assessment Tool Intervention and Methods for Evaluation

Background Unpaid carers provide practical or emotional support to dependents with long-term and life-threatening illnesses who cannot manage without help.

Carers have support needs but these frequently go unmet which negatively impacts their well-being and prevents them from continuing to care.

The Carer Support Needs Assessment Tool Intervention (CSNAT-I) is an empirically derived and tested intervention to help identify and respond to areas where carers believe they need more support. It involves a needs-led conversation with a professional about their needs and what might help.

The UK is becoming an increasingly diverse society with more people from minority ethnic communities living with long-term or life-limiting conditions. Evidence indicates CSNAT-I benefits carers and their dependents. However, no current evidence exists on its acceptability to carers from minority ethnic communities.

To extend support and equity to carers minority ethnic communities solutions are required.

Aims To optimise CSNAT-I (content, delivery and training) to ensure it is culturally acceptable to carers from minority ethnic communities of dependents with long-term and life-threatening illnesses and professionals. To consider appropriate and acceptable methods to evaluate CSNAT-I with carers from minority ethnic communities.

Methods Working across three ethnically diverse cities (Bradford, Leicester, and Sheffield), this study includes three Work Packages (WPs).

Patient and public involvement is embedded in all WPs to ensure the relevance and validity of research objectives, study materials and outputs.

WP1 Objectives: Establish the acceptability of CSNAT-I (both five-stage CSNAT-I process and integrated tool) for carers from minority ethnic communities and adapt it if required, including the format and terminology of the integrated tool.

Develop a prototype Training Supplement for professionals delivering CSNAT-I to carers from minority ethnic communities.

We will recruit carers from minority ethnic communities via health professionals working in primary care, hospices, and community organisations, to gather their views on the acceptability and utility of the current CSNAT-I and adapt it if required.

With PPI we will develop a prototype Training Supplement for professionals to enable them to use CSNAT-I with carers from minority ethnic communities.

WP2 Objective: Establish professionals perspectives on implementation facilitators and barriers for CSNAT-I with carers from minority ethnic communities and optimise CSNAT-I (including professional training, support process and implementation guidance) for these communities.

Health professionals will receive CSNAT-I training and deliver culturally acceptable CSNAT-I to carers from minority ethnic communities.

We will explore professionals and carers experiences of this and make further necessary refinements to CSNAT-I and Training Supplement to produce the final version of the culturally acceptable CSNAT-I (process and integrated tool) and Training Supplement.

WP3 Objective: Consider acceptable and appropriate study designs for future evaluation of the culturally acceptable CSNAT-I for carers from minority ethnic communities and Training Supplement for professionals.

Through three expert stakeholder events, we will explore feasible and acceptable methods to evaluate the effect of the culturally acceptable CSNAT-I to inform a future evaluation.

Dissemination: With PPI support we will share our findings with study participants, health professionals, organisations and researchers interested in ethnicity via webinars, scientific journal publications and conferences.