The American Diabetes Association (ADA) has issued a position statement on psychosocial care for people with diabetes. These evidence-based guidelines offer recommendations based on commonly used clinical models, expert consensus, and tested interventions, taking into account available resources, practice patterns, and practitioner burden. Recommendations include:

• Psychosocial care should be integrated with collaborative, patient-centered medical care and provided to all people with diabetes, with the goals of optimizing health outcomes and health-related quality of life.
• Providers should consider an assessment of symptoms of diabetes distress, depression, anxiety, and disordered eating and of cognitive capacities using patient-appropriate standardized/validated tools at the initial visit, at periodic intervals, and when there is a change in disease, treatment, or life circumstance. Including caregivers and family members in this assessment is recommended.
• Consider monitoring patient performance of self-management behaviors as well as psychosocial factors impacting the person’s self-management.
• Consider assessment of life circumstances that can affect physical and psychological health outcomes and their incorporation into intervention strategies.
• Addressing psychosocial problems upon identification is recommended. If an intervention cannot be initiated during the visit when the problem is identified, a follow-up visit or referral to a qualified behavioral health care provider may be scheduled during that visit.