Health Beliefs and Folk Models of Diabetes in British Bangladeshis: A Qualitative Study

Successful management of diabetes requires that we understand the lifestyle, beliefs, attitudes, and family and social networks of the patients being treated.1 Qualitative methods are particularly useful when the subject of research is relatively unexplored and the research question is loosely defined or open ended.2 With two recently published exceptions3,4 and a small British study based entirely on individual interviews,5 such methods have rarely been used in the study of diabetes.