Adapting research to local contexts based on the model of Campinha-Bacote for cultural competence: a case scenario of 3 ethnic groups in the Islamic Republic of Iran

This article examines the issue of cultural competence in qualitative cross-cultural mental health research. Conducting qualitative research on mental health and illness requires the researchers to acquire sensitivity to different cultures and develop the skills of cultural competence. We outline the main aims and steps of implementation when incorporating concepts of cultural competence into a qualitative research study. We present a case scenario from studies on women's depression in 3 ethnic groups [Fars, Kurd and Turk] in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The article presents a brief overview of the Campinha-Bacote model and addresses the 5 major constructs of cultural competence as they were applied in the 3 phases of the research process

[Health research priority setting in Iran]

Priority setting is one of the most important issues in health research systems. No national health system can afford to finance all research projects proposed by researchers, especially in developing countries. Therefore, we decided to set the main national health research priorities in Iran using the Essential National Health Research [ENHR] method. All of the Iranian universities of medical sciences and other stakeholders collaborated in this study. The methodology for research priority setting was based on needs assessment and ENHR. The total number of research priorities gathered from universities of medical sciences was 6723. The proportions of topics related to basic science, applied and development subjects were 17%, 78% and 5%, respectively. Further analysis of the data showed that almost half [46.3%] of the research priorities were descriptive, 36.0% analytical, and 17.6% interventional. The research priorities were divided into 9 main areas, namely, communicable diseases, noncommunicable diseases, health system research, pharmaceutical sciences and industrial pharmacy, basic science, traditional and herbal medicine, nutrition, environmental health, and dentistry. Up to now the common procedure for research priority setting has been, with a top-to-bottom approach, managed by a limited number of researchers and experts, while in the method presented in this paper a bottom-to-top approach is used, which is more effective