Diabetes Is Devastating, and Insulin Is a Death Sentence: Provider Perspectives of Diabetes Self-Management in Arab-American Patients

IN BRIEF The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine providers’ perspectives on cultural barriers and facilitators to diabetes self-management (DSM) in Arab Americans to identify factors to enhance DSM education in the Arab-American community. The main barriers to DSM from the providers’ perspective were the disease itself and patients’ denial or refusal to recognize it, reflecting the stigma of the disease. Cultural aspects also included overlapping themes that both facilitated and presented barriers to DSM. These results suggest that DSM education for Arab Americans will be most effective if developed and delivered in a manner consistent with the cultural facilitators and barriers noted by providers.