Biopsychosocial predictors of diabetes self-care among African American and Latino patients with type 2 diabetes

Diabetes self-care (DSC) is critical to the overall management of diabetes. Few studies have examined the biopsychosocial predictors of DSC across different cultural groups, particularly racial/ethnic minorities residing in the US. The aims of the current study are to examine the performance of DSC in a group of African American and Latino patients with type 2 diabetes, and to determine the set of demographic and biopsychosocial factors that best predict the performance of DSC. We analyzed baseline in-person survey data collected from African American and Latinos aged ≥18 years with type 2 diabetes participating in a diabetes self-management intervention at four primary care clinics. The Summary of Diabetes Self-Care Activities used to assess DSC, captures the subcomponents of healthy eating, physical activity, blood sugar testing, medication use, foot care, and smoking. The predictors used included socio-demographic factors, and measures of depressive symptomatology, diabetes distress, diabetes self-efficacy, glycemic control, and health literacy. Multiple linear regression with stepwise model selection was utilized to identify the set of independent variables that best explained each of the DSC activities. Baseline characteristics of this sample (n=255) include: mean age of 53.4 years; 69% female; 54% African American and 46% Hispanic; and 58% with incomes below $20,000. Preliminary examination of the baseline data indicates that the set of predictor variables that best explain the variance in self-care differs by the self-care activity of interest with R-square values for the fitted models ranging from 8.2% to 23.2%. Detailed presentation of the regression model results will be presented.