Illness-Specific Risk-Taking in Adolescence: A Missing Piece of the Nonadherence Puzzle for Youth With Type 1 Diabetes?

Risky behavior is often at its lifetime peak in adolescence. Chronic illness creates additional opportunities for risk because nonadherence behaviors can jeopardize adolescents’ health. Adolescents with type 1 diabetes could engage in risky behavior around insulin administration that would put them in danger of severe health consequences. It is possible that some nonadherence behaviors observed in adolescents with type 1 diabetes may result from youth taking risks with their medical treatment. Illness-specific risk-taking behaviors are not captured in most assessments of adherence, which primarily focus on frequency of adherence behaviors. This article reviews current models of general risk-taking and their implications for diabetes management. The authors argue that illness-specific risk-taking may be an important, understudied aspect of illness management that can inform future studies and treatment of nonadherence in adolescents with type 1 diabetes.