Analysis of Community Based Participatory Research Scribe Notes

OBJECTIVE(S): The overall goal of this project is to address these two limitations by conducting a pilot analysis of the existing scribe notes using a team based approach that includes members of both academic and community organizations. This will accomplish
four things: 1) analysis of data from the existing scribe notes will summarize the process of partnership development that the scribe notes have served to document, 2) the community voice will be connected to the scribe note process through the inclusion of community members as analysts, 3) limitations of the current system for documenting W4W meetings will be highlighted and 4) a grant proposal will be developed to pursue resources to improve the scribing process and to conduct a full analysis of all meeting notes.

METHODS: The pilot analysis project will use a grounded theory text analysis process to identify themes relevant to partnership development that emerge in the scribe text. A group of three community members and three academic participants will read through a sample of scribe notes from one meeting type (Building Wellness) and develop a list of themes that emerge from the texts. These individuals will meet to discuss the list of themes and come to a consensus on 8 major themes. Examples of themes that might emerge include "conflict", "racism", "trust", "misunderstanding", etc. Once a list of 8 themes have been identified, research assistants from the NIMH center will use a text analysis software to "tag" sections of text from a larger sample of meeting scribe notes. Once all themes have been tagged, text segments will be printed onto cards that will be used in a group card sorting activity. The six community/academic participants will meet again after the coding process is complete to sort the cards into piles according to sub-themes. Disagreements about where cards shold be sorted or what type of sub-theme piles to construct will be worked out over the course of the meeting and the meeting will end in consensus. Both the card sorting meeting and the theme identification meeting will be audio-recorded and transcribed.

FINDINGS / RESULTS: This is a new project and results have not yet been obtained.

STATUS: Project leads have been identified (David Kennedy for the RAND/UCLA NIMH Center and Adrea Jones, Healthy African American Families. Scribe notes are currently being de-identified by research assistants at the RAND/UCLA NIMH Center.
IMPACT: This project will provide insight into the partnership formation process of W4W, identify areas of greater need for community insight into the scribe process, and provide the basis for the development of a funding request to implement scribe note improvements. Ultimately, the scribe note process will be evaluated, improved, documented and the lessons learned will inform other Academic-Community research partnerships.