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The role of cultural beliefs and distress in adherence to recommended physical activity among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus

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Abstract

The aim of this research was to examine the role of negative cultural beliefs about exercise and their relation to diabetes distress as determinants of exercise treatment adherence among culturally and socio-economically diverse patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Participants included 193 Latin American (Latino) and non-Latino White patients with T2DM from a region of Southern California, with high rates of T2DM. The research was guided by Betancourt’s Integrative Model of Culture, Psychology, and Behavior which specifies the structure of relations among socio-structural, cultural, and psychological factors as determinants of health behavior. As hypothesized, structural equation modeling revealed that negative cultural beliefs about exercise predicted higher levels of diabetes distress (ß = 0.32, p < 0.05), which in turn predicted lower exercise treatment adherence (ß = − 0.34, p < 0.05). Findings suggest a critical need for interventions that target both cultural and psychological factors in order to improve diabetes outcomes.

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Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank the Loma Linda University Medical Center Diabetes Treatment Center for their support, which made this research possible.

Funding

This research was supported by the Culture and Behavior Laboratory through intramural research funds from the Department of Psychology at Loma Linda University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Behavioral Health, Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, CA, USA

    Connor M. Nance, Hector Betancourt & Patricia M. Flynn

  2. Department of Psychology, School of Behavioral Health, Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, CA, USA

    Hector Betancourt & Patricia M. Flynn

  3. Department of Psychology, Universidad de La Frontera, Temuco, Chile

    Hector Betancourt

  4. Department of Preventive Medicine, School of Medicine, Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, CA, USA

    Patricia M. Flynn

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  1. Connor M. Nance
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  2. Hector Betancourt
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  3. Patricia M. Flynn
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Correspondence to Connor M. Nance.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Ethics approval for the research reported in this study was granted by the Institutional Review Board at Loma Linda University. The procedures used in this study adhere to the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki.

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All procedures followed were in accordance with ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Nance, C.M., Betancourt, H. & Flynn, P.M. The role of cultural beliefs and distress in adherence to recommended physical activity among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. J Behav Med 45, 472–480 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-022-00301-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-022-00301-w

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