Table 2.

African-Americans’ perceived solutions for improving medication adherence

Roles	Themes	Sample quotes
Provider	Educate on the necessity of medicines and the consequences of not taking them	Your doctor and a pharmacist should tell you like every time you go to the pharmacy […] what I think they should do is tell you, even though you’ve been taking this for a while, and it’s not new to you, you still should take this, because it’s going to help you. They don’t say that. some people don’t like to […] take their medication. I believe that the pharmacist should tell you when you pick up your medication, you should take this because it’s going to help you. [DBPID_0024]
	Scare patient on the seriousness of diabetes complications	You sit down and talk to them sternly or whatever, whatever it takes. [DBPID_0034] I don’t know if they scare them more and say […] you’ll live longer […] you got to be serious, take that approach serious. Fear will wake you up. [DBPID_0041]
	Provider should be educated on working with members of the health care team and the African-American community	Talk to pharmacists […] that pharmacist is your friend. The pharmacist, the doctor, the patient, the family of the patient […], because it should be a teamwork. I think once a year a doctor should sit down with a team of, you know […] (AA patients) like us, and talk. If you working in this community, I think it should be mandated for the doctor to come to a community meeting or to meet and find out his community. [DBPID_0017]
Patient	Support groups and buddy systems	You’ve got to have friends, family members […] talk to each other. Because my family is full of diabetes. Everybody’s got diabetes and high blood pressure or something going on. [DBPID_0041] I always say have a buddy system. You make sure you’ve got a person […] we got to first get ourselves together before we can help somebody else and do education, talking, communication. It’s like be an advocate. But you need someone with you. [DBPID_0017]
	Teach self-advocacy	And I think I have to be a true advocate for myself when I go and see the doctor. And I don’t think that’s the same experience that someone that is non-black experiences. [DBPID_001] […] we’ve got to advocate. you’ve got to be proactive […] In our black community now we lost, when we was growing up we talked […] And now in our community, we don’t have that […] if something happened, the community came together […] have a buddy system. You make sure you’ve got a person […] we got to first get ourselves together before we can help somebody else and do education, talking, communication. It’s like be an advocate. But you need someone with you. [DBPID_0017]
	Ask provider questions	And we don’t ask questions after they say that (you are borderline) Just questioning it […] That’s the thing. We dont question […]. [DBPID_004] You got to learn how to ask, what are the side effects to this pill? Because every pill has a side effect, you know. [DBPID_002]
The church	Act as a communication resource	lot of elders in church […] They be sick. And I think we (the church) act like a health check, and have somebody go, and give their medication, someone advocate for them […] (church name) […] they had health checks. The mothers, they come and say Girl, go over there and see about Ms. So-and-So…see if she’s taking her meds […]. I don’t see that now in church. The church I was going to in (city name) […] we had RNs, home nurse staff […] if you got diabetes, you need help, they will link you to a nurse, and a nurse would help you like that, privately […] maybe two times a year they would have some kind of thing for health […] coming in. But I think the church needs to be more consistent. [DBPID_0017]