Food Insecurity And Low Self Efficacy Are Associated With Health Care Access Barriers Among Puerto Ricans With Type 2 Diabetes
The study, approved by the University of Connecticut's IRB, Hartford Hospital and the Hispanic Health Council, aimed to examine if there was an autonomous relationship between food insecurity and accessing health care among Puerto Rican female adults with type 2 diabetes. A cross sectional survey was conducted on 211 low income individuals through the DIALBEST and Metabolic Syndrome Clinic at Hartford Hospital from December 2006 to February 2009. To participate, individuals needed to sign a written consent and qualify, based on some requirements. The mean age of participants was 56. The survey was led at the participant's home and interviewers were bilingual because 66% of participants only spoke Spanish. Blood samples were collected by the DIALBEST during the 3 years and participants were given $10 compensation each time an interview and blood draw occurred.
The questionnaire gave participants phrases that asked about the barriers that get in the way of intaking medication, doctor-access, lack of understanding, insurance, referrals, transportation, finances and forgetfulness; serving as dependent variables. As independent variables, socio-economic/demographic, psychosocial, cultural, clinical, perception of diabetes and self-efficacy variables were controlled to find any associations.
When analyzing, food insecurity was a major factor of medication accessibility, forgetfulness and enabling factors. Findings showed Puerto Ricans lacking good health insurance, blocked accessible care from a doctor and medication. Findings also revealed, high acculturations experienced more facilitated barriers. Moreover, individuals with high social support, better managed their diabetes and those with less support lacked management, associating it with the doctor access barrier. Those with high diabetes management and self-efficacy experienced none of the 4 barriers. Low education led to low medication access barriers and those with higher education reported risk of depression, due to low social support. Older age was a factor of forgetfulness and high diabetes perceptions was associated with high motivation of participants to care for themselves.
Race and Gender Differences in Self-efficacy: Assessing the Role of Gender Role Attitudes and Family Background
The focus of the study was to explore the influence of gender role attitudes and family structures on self-efficacy among African American and white female and males. It is argued that race does have an influence on self-efficacy, as well as hypothesized that those having high gender role attitudes would lead to a sense of high self-efficacy, which this study aimed to figure out. To gather data, a representative of college students, in 20 classes at a Middle South university were surveyed. The sample had 486 freshman students who were about 20 years old. The study consisted of 8 hypothesis that measured the relationship between race and gender interactions and relationships with self-efficacy development, liberal gender attitudes, perceptions of roles and expectations, sex role liberalism, the relationship between males and females living with single mothers and family/work structures in the home.
Results from the study found that sex role liberalism in white females highly relates to self-efficacy, in which family structure and work plays a role. We could see that the work status of mothers was a factor for whites and their self-efficacy development. It was observed that white females had mothers that partially worked or didn't work at all, and black female's mothers worked full time, which could explain the different social impacts. Also, gender role attitudes were strongly related to the self-efficacy of AA female, males and white females, excluding white males. Moreover, when it came to the AA males, they didn't have more traditionalism than whites, like past research suggested. This finding showed that African males had high self-efficacy when they practiced open gender role attitudes and engaging in liberal attitudes would help them adjust to situations and open families, as well as not affect their self-efficacy.
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