J Natl Med Assoc
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Exposure to racism has been linked to poor health outcomes. Little is known about the impact of racism on diabetes outcomes. This study explored African American women's beliefs about how racism interacts with their diabetes self-management and control. ⋯ Many women described anger in such situations and the tendency to internalize anger and other negative emotions, only to find that the negative emotions would be reactivated repeatedly with exposure to novel racial stressors, even long after the original racist event remitted. African American women in this study believed that racism affects their diabetes self-management and control. Health beliefs can exert powerful effects on health behaviors and may provide an opportunity for health promotion interventions in diabetes.
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Among African Americans, behaviors and beliefs about management of disease constitute an important component of self-management of type 2 diabetes (diabetes mellitus). The purpose of this study was to explore and identify health beliefs and health behaviors affecting diabetes self-management among African American women with type 2 diabetes. Twenty-five African American women aged 46 to 87 years, participated in the study. ⋯ Difficulties experienced that affected behavioral outcomes included access to care, costs of medications, pain, testing supplies, and nutritional changes. Findings suggest that modifications to the recommended regimen support or impede participants' efficient self-management of clinically recommended behaviors. Thus, for African American women managing type 2 diabetes, the regimen may necessitate modification models of diabetes self-management, day-to-day behavioral lifestyle adjustments to the biomedically recommended self-management regimen.