Participants were recruited from an outpatient primary care clinic in Hartford, Connecticut.
Eligible patients were of self-reported Puerto Rican ethnicity, 18 years of age or older, and
had a clinical diagnosis of T2DM for at least one year. To generate a representative sample
of diabetes patients receiving care at the clinic, two bilingual clinic staff members of Puerto
Rican heritage generated a list of 260 eligible patients using four distinct sources: (a)
physician referrals, (b) approaching patients in waiting rooms, (c) reviewing records of
patients who had participated in research two-four years prior to this study, and (d)
reviewing records of patients who had either received or were scheduled to receive a groupbased
diabetes education class. All 260 potential participants were called; 182 were
contacted, 28 of these were not interested in participating and 25 were interested but
unavailable to participate (11 had no transportation, 8 had no child care, 1 was too ill, and 5
had to work). Of the 129 patients who were scheduled, 118 arrived to participate in the
study. All methods were approved by the Institutional Review Boards at the clinic and the
University of Connecticut prior to study enrollment.