Aims/hypothesis. The Cost of Diabetes in EuropeType II study is the first large coordinated attempt to measure the current standard of care and determine the costs of managing patients with Type II (non-insulin-dependent) diabetes mellitus. Methods. The study evaluated glycaemic control, blood lipid levels and blood pressure, all of which are risk factors for complications. Records of these clinical characteristics were collected from over 7000 patients during the 6-month study period. Results. The mean HbA 1c value for the entire study population was 7.5%, ranging from 7.0% in Sweden to 7.8% in the United Kingdom. Only 31 % of individuals achieved good glycaemic control (HbA 1c s=6.5%) according to current European guidelines. Only 64% of the total study population were tested for HbA 1c values at least once within the 6-month study period (ranging from 49% in Spain to 71 % in the UK), although HbA 1c testing every 3 months is recommended for all patients, by European Diabetes Policy Group guidelines. The maJonty of patients had borderline total cholesterol values, with a mean value of 5.7 mmol/l. Overall, 21 % of patients were classified as having low risk cholesterol levels «4.8 mmol/l). Good triglyceride levels «1.7 mmolll) were achieved by 47% of the total study population. During the study period, 81 % of patients had their blood pressure measured, with 35% and 53.3% of the patients reaching the recommended targets for systolic and diastolic blood pressure, respectively. Conclusion/interpretation. This study showed that a high proportion of patients with risk factors for diabetes-related complications are not adequately controlled. Improvements in disease management and monitoring are therefore required to ensure that guideline targets are met, thus reducing the long-term complications of Type II diabetes. [Diabetologia (2002) 45:S23-S28]

This paper describes an acculturative integration approach that stresses the contribution of liberation psychology. Immigrant integration is a challenge for receiving countries in the Western world due to the frequent asymmetrical and oppressive conditions suffered by newcomers in their new settlements. The cross-cultural perspective connects integration with psychological acculturation, emphasizing harmony between acquisitions of the new culture while maintaining cultural heritage, and creating opportunities for intergroup relationships. In turn, liberation psychology permits an understanding of the acculturative transition as an empowerment and self-construction process by which immigrants acquire a new vision of the world and of themselves, transforming both structural conditions and themselves. From this perspective we conceptualize acculturative integration as the process by which newcomers become an accepted part of the new society through a reflexive and evaluative process, changing their social references and position, rebuilding their social and personal resources, and achieving a new agency in coherence with their new challenges and goals. In this process, they acquire critical thinking about unequal conditions, gain capacities to respond to the inequalities, and take effective actions to confront them. We illustrate this process using the narratives of nine Moroccan women who are living in asymmetrical and oppressive local contexts in Andalusia, the southern-most region of Spain.

Because of the high cost of treating type 2 diabetes and its complications, preventive measures should be implemented and control of the disease should be improved to reduce the costs associated with chronic complications.

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Cross-cultural research over the past two decades has shown very important differences in self-construal. However, the comparison of a wider range of cultures is needed to further understanding into this relationship. In contrast to Markus and Kitayama’s distinction between independent and interdependent self-construal, authors such as Matsumoto, Kagitçibasi, and Oyserman and colleagues have defended a more complex, multidimensional, and situated perspective on self-construal. Recent studies using the Twenty Statement Test (TST) as a measure of self-construal have supported this multidimensional view of the construct. The current study explored self-descriptions in college students from three different countries (Denmark, Spain, and Mexico) by using a shortened version of the TST. The results evidenced some unexpected cultural differences in self-construal. Danish participants referred proportionally less to private and personal attributes and qualities than their Mexican and Spanish participants, and they made more references to interdependence and responsiveness to other. Results do not fit with some basic assumptions of Markus and Kitayama’s theory and give support to the view of self-construal as multidimensional and with variations associated with personal and situational factors.

The COVID-19 pandemic created a unique set of circumstances in which to investigate collective memory and future simulations of events reported during the onset of a potentially historic event. Between early April and late June 2020, we asked over 4,000 individuals from 15 countries across four continents to report on remarkable (a) national and (b) global events that (i) had happened since the first cases of COVID-19 were reported, and (ii) they expected to happen in the future. Whereas themes of infections, lockdown, and politics dominated global and national past events in most countries, themes of economy, a second wave, and lockdown dominated future events. The themes and phenomenological characteristics of the events differed based on contextual group factors. First, across all conditions, the event themes differed to a small yet significant degree depending on the severity of the pandemic and stringency of governmental response at the national level. Second, participants reported national events as less negative and more vivid than global events, and group differences in emotional valence were largest for future events. This research demonstrates that even during the early stages of the pandemic, themes relating to its onset and course were shared across many countries, thus providing preliminary evidence for the emergence of collective memories of this event as it was occurring. Current findings provide a profile of past and future collective events from the early stages of the ongoing pandemic, and factors accounting for the consistencies and differences in event representations across 15 countries are discussed. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.3758/s13421-022-01329-8.

The process of construction of lesbian identity in a group of eight Spanish women is analyzed from a historical-cultural perspective. For that purpose, we provide a characterization of discourses about homosexuality in Spain and the way in which these discourses are intertwined with autobiographical narratives of the participants. The participants' life stories were analyzed using a qualitative methodology. We focused on the relationship between self and lesbianism and emphasized the themes related to identity issues (development of lesbian identity and reflections about identity). As a conclusion, we stress the need to deconstruct stigmatizing discourses about homosexuality for the development of a positive personal identity.