the health belief model and self-care behaviors among type 2 diabetic patients

objective: diabetes mellitus is a major health problem worldwide. the diabetes self-care behavior is an effective strategy to control diabetes. the study aimed to investigate the predictors of self-care behavior based on the health belief model (hbm) among type 2 diabetic patients. materials and methods: this cross-sectional study was carried out on 390 diabetic patients referred to hamadan diabetes research center with a simple random sampling method. the participants completed a self-administered questionnaire including demographic characteristics, self-care behaviors and hbm constructs. data were analyzed using parametric tests in spss-19 software. results: according to the findings, the diabetic patients had a moderate level of self-care behaviors. also results showed that, hbm explained 29.6% of the variance in frequency of self-care behaviors. perceived self-efficacy, perceived severity, perceived barrier and perceived susceptibility were the best significant predictors (p<0.05). conclusion: the researchers suggest to promote self-care behaviors, preparing training packages tailored to the needs of diabetic patients with emphasis on increasing self-efficacy and removal barriers of normal self-care behaviors are necessary.