What are the major barriers preventing Asian populations from seeking mental health services?

METHODOLOGY
Introduction
This section provides the framework specific to how the systematic literature review was
conducted to answer the study’s research question. In addition, it describes the target groups of
the studies collected, as well as the methods that were used to gather the research articles.
Research Question
This project aims to answer the following research question: What are the major barriers
preventing Asian populations from seeking mental health services?
Description of the Participants
Research articles selected for the systematic literature review consisted of any population
of Asian descent living in a developed country. For example, Chinese immigrants, Japanese,
Filipino, Indonesian, Cambodian refugees, Indians, Malaysian, South Asian Immigrants in
Calgary, Taiwanese, Vietnamese Canadians, Thai, Laotian, and Korean (Americans) were
among those described in the study population. There were no other criteria used for selection of
target groups (e.g., age, profession, gender, education level).
Instrumentation
A systematic literature search was conducted in August 2016 on published studies
identifying barriers to utilizing mental health services among Asian subgroups living in North
America. Ten databases were used, including: PubMed, ProQuest Central, Academic Search
Premier, PsycARTICLES, Springer Standard Collection, CINAHL Plus with Full Text,
Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, JSTOR Arts and Sciences VII, Sage Premier,
and ScienceDirect ArticleChoice. Boolean operators were used to create various search strings
with terms related to “barriers AND mental health services AND Asian*”.
Ethical Considerations
The study did not require Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval as the study was a
systematic literature review. To achieve the highest level of credibility when conducting the
review, only peer-reviewed, scholarly research articles were chosen for analysis.