Participatory research, diabetes workshops, and participants' experiences: Tuesday June 12

[Lucy Manchester]

Hey all,

Hope you can join for this really interesting talk this Tuesday!


Participatory Research @ Lunch!

Presented by: Participatory Research at McGill (PRAM)


Please Join us Tuesday, June 12 at 12:00 PM for our monthly seminar
This month featuring…
Jayne Murdoch, MA., of the School of Dietetics and Human Nutrition,
McGill University

► Understanding how workshops transform participants' lives by
exploring their perceived experiences: the Kahnawake Schools Diabetes
Prevention Project (KSDPP)
(see attached flyer for details)

Department of Family Medicine
517 Pine Ave. West
Montreal, Qc

Light refreshments will be provided.

Please RSVP to pram...@mcgill.ca<mailto:pram...@mcgill.ca>
or (514) 398-1357



Abstract below:

Understanding how workshops transform participants’ lives by exploring
their
perceived experiences: the Kahnawake Schools Diabetes Prevention
Project
(KSDPP)

Jayne Murdoch, MA.

Aim: To understand how the healthy lifestyle promoting workshops
offered by KSDPP
bring about transformative experiences that change how participants
live their lives.
Design: Qualitative study of semi-structured interviews.
Setting: KSDPP is a community based participatory research project
created in 1994 in
an effort to prevent diabetes in Kahnawake, a Mohawk community. Since
2007 KSDPP
has implemented cooking, healthy lifestyle and physical activity
workshops for adults.
Participants: Seventeen adult female Kahnawake community members with
repeat
participation in more than one KSDPP workshop, and one key knowledge
holder, the
Community Intervention Facilitator, who designed and implemented the
workshops.
Methods: Interview transcripts were analysed following grounded
theory.
Results: Deciding to attend a workshop required overcoming feeling
selfish and
accepting there is value in caring for oneself. Participants
experienced transformative
processes that included learning cultural traditions, healthy
lifestyle skills, stress coping
skills and feeling they were participating in community life. The
outcomes of the
processes were feelings of improved physical, intellectual, spiritual
and emotional health.
Other Kahnawake community members’ health was impacted through
participants’
healthy lifestyle role modeling and advocacy.
Conclusions: The KSDPP health promotion workshops brought about
changes in the
overall health of participants. Diabetes prevention interventions
could be designed to
encourage the development of the transformative processes found in
this study and could
emphasize that the decision to join an intervention is a choice to do
something positive
for oneself that may lead to better individual and community health.