Abstract
Diabetes mellitus is the seventh leading cause of death in America and affects 382 million people worldwide. Individuals with diabetes must manage the complexity of the disease, its treatment, and complications to avert deleterious consequences associated with the illness. However, not all patients with diabetes successfully gain mastery to positively impact self-management. A new middle-range theory is proposed that merges 2 extant theories, theory of mastery and organismic integration theory, to better understand this human response. The theories' philosophical, theoretical, and conceptual perspectives were examined and relational properties synthesized to provide a conceptual representation of the phenomenon of interest.