Abstract
Successful management of diabetes requires that patients follow a treatment regimen that involves adopting or maintaining a number of health behaviors, including a healthy diet, exercise, and oral medication and/or insulin. Yet treatment regimen adherence rates are notoriously low. Failure to adhere to a prescribed diabetes regimen can lead to serious complications involving multiple systems of the body, most notably cardiovascular disease. In efforts to understand why adherence rates are so low, a broad range of psychosocial factors must be examined. These factors include psychological influences such as memory, self-efficacy, diabetes-specific distress, depression, and anxiety; more proximal social influences, such as family and friend involvement and the patient–provider relationship; and broader social influences such as gender, age, culture, and socioeconomic status. A greater understanding of how and why psychosocial factors impact diabetes management can help in the design of interventions that address multiple areas of patients’ lives to promote greater treatment adherence.