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Cultural Adaptation of an Evidence Based Intervention: From Theory to Practice in a Latino/a Community Context

  • Original Paper
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American Journal of Community Psychology

Abstract

The cultural tailoring of interventions to reach underserved groups has moved from descriptive and proscriptive models to their application with existing evidence based treatments. To date few published examples illustrate the process of cultural adaptation. The current paper documents the adaptation of an evidence based parent training intervention, Parent Management Training—Oregon Model (PMTO™), for Spanish-speaking Latino parents using both process (Domenech Rodríguez and Wieling in Voices of color: first-person accounts of ethnic minority therapists, Sage, Thousand Oaks, 2004) and content (Bernal et al. in J Abnorm Child Psychol 23:67–82, 1995) models. The adaptation took place in stages: a pilot study to ensure feasibility, focus groups to establish appropriate format and goals, and a test of the intervention. Throughout the process the treatment manual was treated as a living document. Changes were applied and documented as the team developed improvements for the adaptation. The present discussion details both process adaptations, (e.g., engaging the treatment developer, community leaders, and parents, and decentering the manual), and content adaptations, (e.g., shaping the appropriateness of language, persons, metaphors, concepts, contexts, methods, and goals). The current research provides support for the idea that cultural adaptations can improve service delivery to diverse groups and can be conducted systematically with documentation for replication purposes. Suggestions for improving the empirical measurement and documentation of the adaptation process are included.

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Notes

  1. Latinos is a term used to refer to people with origins in countries where the primary language is Spanish or Portuguese. The gender inclusive term would be Latino/a, however, this nomenclature can visually interrupt reading flow. As such, the term “Latino” will be used to refer to both males and females.

  2. The treatment developer was Dr. Marion Forgatch at Oregon Social Learning Center and Implementation Science International, Inc. a senior research scientist at OSLC and the director of ISII.

  3. The cultural adaptation specialist was Dr. Melanie Domenech Rodríguez, a bilingual, bicultural university professor with a program of research and practice in Latino/a mental health.

  4. A mid-week call is part of the standard delivery of the PMTO intervention. It is intended to maximize parents’ opportunities to successfully implement learned principles, thus promoting adherence and generalizability of skills.

  5. Many thanks to Nancy Amador Buenabad for her invaluable assistance.

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Acknowledgments

The research reported in this manuscript was supported by a NIMH K01 award (MH066297) and a Utah State University New Faculty Grant to the first author. The authors wish to thank Marion Forgatch for her invaluable comments to this manuscript and for her tireless mentorship in the service of supporting families.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Utah State University, 2810 Old Main Hill, Logan, UT, 84322-2810, USA

    Melanie M. Domenech Rodríguez & Audrey L. Schwartz

  2. Center for Latino Family Research, George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University in St. Louis, Campus Box 1196, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, 63130-4899, USA

    Ana A. Baumann

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  1. Melanie M. Domenech Rodríguez
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Correspondence to Melanie M. Domenech Rodríguez.

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Domenech Rodríguez, M.M., Baumann, A.A. & Schwartz, A.L. Cultural Adaptation of an Evidence Based Intervention: From Theory to Practice in a Latino/a Community Context. Am J Community Psychol 47, 170–186 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-010-9371-4

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