Associations between diabetes patients’ medication beliefs and adherence

Objective: To clarify the role of diabetes patients’ medication beliefs in explaining their medication adherence levels. Design: Cross sectional. Methods: Diabetes patients from Veterans Affairs settings reported their beliefs about the perceived necessity and potential harmfulness of their diabetes medications, along with their medication adherence and sociodemographic variables. Results: One-third of the 303 patients in the sample were nonadherent to medication A linear regression model adjusted for age, income, medical comorbidity, functional health literacy, depressive symptoms, and diabetes-related distress indicated that degree of nonadherence was significantly associated with the degree to which patients believed that their diabetes medication was unnecessary (β = − 0.19, p = 0.13, p = 0.021). Similar findings emerged when nonadherence was analyzed as a binary outcome in a logistic regression. Conclusions. In order to be maximally effective, interventions to improve diabetes medication adherence should evaluate patients’ perceptions about both the necessity and safety of taking medication. Implications for intervention accordingly are presented.