Diabetes mellitus: biomedical health education/promotion approach

Diabetes mellitus causes numerous difficulties for those who adopt a biomedical health education/promotion approach. Its management regimen is notoriously complex, being affected by variety of cognitive, psychosocial and environmental factors. However, a valuable contribution of biomedical research in this area has been the corroboration by empirical studies that dispositional characteristics have little to do with adherence/non-adherence behaviours. Criticisms of the biomedical approach include its omission of the psychosocial correlates of health and illness, and its health expert and individualistic orientation. In critically appraising the biomedical model and its related health education/promotion approaches, this article will briefly describe the model and its origins and critically review its strengths and weaknesses. It will then examine some of the empirical problems associated with the measurement of compliance, metabolic control and self-management as evaluatory outcomes in diabetes.