Renal Disease Risk Factors Among Risk Groups Comprised of African American Women With Type 2 Diabetes: A Secondary Analysis

Purpose The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the prevalence of renal disease risk factors and the categorization of renal disease risk groups among African American women with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) who participated in a self-management and coping skills training intervention. We also explored and described the change in renal disease risk factors within and between risk groups, determining if participation in a culturally relevant coping skills training intervention decreased renal disease risk. This study was a secondary analysis of data from a longitudinal intervention study and included all 109 African American women with T2DM from the primary intervention study. This study examined the prevalence of 4 renal disease risk factors among the women at baseline via descriptive statistics, used cluster analysis to divide the women into risk groups and categorize the risk groups, and also measured the change in risk factors over time among risk groups via mixed modeling. A majority of the women had a hemoglobin A1C ≥7% (62.39%) and were obese (75.93%). The high-risk cluster displayed clinically significant declines in mean systolic blood pressure, triglycerides, and A1C in both the control and intervention groups, and the intervention was more effective in reducing triglycerides and A1C levels among high-risk participants than low-risk. Overall, the control, high-risk group exhibited the largest declines in systolic blood pressure, triglycerides, and A1C. This study displays the importance of acknowledging African American women with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) at high risk for renal disease in health care settings, which is often overlooked, and realizing that renal disease risk reduction is obtainable.