Effectiveness of culturally tailored diabetes interventions for Asian immigrants to the United States: a systematic review.
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this systematic review is to evaluate the effectiveness of tailoring community-based diabetes intervention to Asian immigrant cultures.


METHODS
The Cochrane processes and Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses recommendations guided this systematic review. PubMed, the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Ovid, and PsycINFO were searched for analyses and syntheses of primary research published since 2000 that described interventions tailored for the cultures of Asian immigrants with diabetes. This search yielded a total of 9 articles published from 2005 to 2013. The Amsterdam-Maastricht Consensus List for Quality Assessment was used to assess the quality of the studies.


RESULTS
Retrieved studies' populations were foreign-born adults >50 years of age with type 2 diabetes. The review revealed that culturally tailored diabetes programs are effective at improving patients' objectively measured clinical outcomes, in particular A1C levels, and psychobehavioral outcomes. Patients were also highly satisfied with bilingual health care providers and bilingual educational programs.


CONCLUSIONS
There is strong evidence of the effectiveness of tailoring diabetes interventions to Asian immigrant populations' cultures. Further studies, including longitudinal studies and studies with rigorous research designs that subclassify Asian immigrants, are needed to encourage the implementation of culturally tailored diabetes intervention for this ethnic minority.
College of Nursing, University of Missouri-St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri (Dr Joo) jooje@umsl.edu.
Jee Young
JY
Joo
D044466:Asian People / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D003153:Community Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D054521:Cultural Competency / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000523:psychology; D003924:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy; D054242:Emigrants and Immigrants / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006442:Glycated Hemoglobin; D006266:Health Education; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D054625:Healthcare Disparities; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008913:Minority Groups; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care / Q000208:ethnology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010353:Patient Education as Topic; D015397:Program Evaluation; D011788:Quality of Life; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology
D006442:Glycated Hemoglobin; C517652:hemoglobin A1c protein, human