Health beliefs of African–Caribbean people with type 2 diabetes: a qualitative study

Article Figures & Data

Prompts: Family and friends
Environment
Lifestyle
Prompts: Lifestyle
Inheritance
Other beliefs about causes
Prompts: How you feel?
How you cope?
Day to day routine, lifestyle, monitoring sugar
Your treatment
Prompts: What causes them?
What you feel about them?
How you cope?
Prompts: How they effect you?
How you feel about them?

Table 1

Demographic characteristics of participants.

Characteristics

Mean age (range), years	62.2 (40–76)
Sex
Male	6
Female	10

Place of birth
UK	3
Caribbean	13

Diabetes control
Insulin	6
Tablets	5
Diet only	5

Mean length of time with diabetes (range), years	10.4 (0.3–29)

Complications
Yes	10
No	6

Length of time in UK (range), years	41.3 (38–53)^a
Mean Townsend score based on postcode of residence (range)	4.23 (−4.08 to 7.32)

Table 2

Table showing the three aims of the study and the relationships of the main themes.

Health beliefs	Risk of complications	Expectations of treatment
Childhood memories	-	-
Fresh
food
Exercise
Caribbean lifestyle
Herbal remedies not health services
Second generation immigrants also have memories of Caribbean foods and herbal remedies

Migration to the UK	-	-
Stressful
Adaptation as a cause of diabetes

Beliefs in the causes of diabetes	-	-
Lifestyle factors
Influence of Caribbean climate
Stress

Knowledge and understanding		-
Not global, but often limited understanding	Variable acknowledgement of the existence of possible complications
Influences of others' accounts considered important	Influence of other people's stories

Mistrust in the value of treatment
Advice about diet at odds with health beliefs	-	Mistrust of the chemicals in tablets and insulin
		Preference for herbal remedies

Strategies to control diabetes
Symptoms more important than objective measures	Fear, denial, and acceptance of complications	-
Influence of strong Christian faith in some people	Influence of other people's stories
Diabetes not a serious illness

Perception of racism	-	NHS not catering for black people
		Individual health professionals considered quite highly