Compliance, diet and cultural factors among black Americans with end-stage renal disease

This article examines dietary compliance among a sample consisting predominantly of Black End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) patients. Previous research on ESRD patients has concentrated on dietary compliance as engendered by a White middle-class medical value system. The current research suggests that this approach may deter compliance rather than encourage it in an ESRD patient population which tends to be composed disproportionately of Blacks. Findings from a structured interview schedule administered to 23 ESRD patients, and their blood analyses, indicate that while patients claim to be compliant, their subjective laboratory results suggest the contrary. As a possible explanation of this result, this article argues that renal dietary restrictions are both too rigid and alien in the context of a Black cultural world view and the eating patterns related to this cultural ethos.