Incorporating Cultural Perspectives into Diabetes Self-Management Programs for East Asian Immigrants: A Mixed-Study Review

J Immigr Minor Health. 2016 Apr;18(2):454-67. doi: 10.1007/s10903-015-0181-5.

Abstract

It is important to understand East Asian immigrants (EAIs)' unique perspectives in managing diabetes in order to provide culturally-competent care. However, it is not known whether EAIs' perspectives are addressed in diabetes self-management interventions developed for EAIs. Therefore, a mixed-study review was conducted to identify EAIs' perspective from qualitative research (n = 9 studies) and to evaluate the components of EAI diabetes self-management interventions (n = 7). Themes from the qualitative synthesis demonstrated that EAIs have unique cultural values and traditional health beliefs while struggling with multi-contextual barriers due to immigration. The evaluation of EAI diabetes self-management interventions revealed that there was a lack of consensus on cultural strategies for EAIs' across the interventions. Addressing language barriers was the only factor consistently integrated in the cultural components of intervention by employing bilingual interventionists. EAIs' perspectives and experiences need to be incorporated in the future diabetes self-management interventions to better provide culturally-competent care.

Keywords: Cultural competency; Diabetes mellitus type 2; East Asian immigrants; Mixed-study review; Self-management.

Publication types

  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Asian People / psychology*
  • Asian People / statistics & numerical data
  • Cultural Characteristics
  • Cultural Competency
  • Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / diagnosis*
  • Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / therapy*
  • Disease Management
  • Emigrants and Immigrants / psychology*
  • Emigrants and Immigrants / statistics & numerical data
  • Female
  • Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice / ethnology*
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Program Evaluation
  • Self Care / methods*
  • United States