The purposes of the present study were to compare perceived self-efficacy on health behavior and the related factors between hemodialysis patients with diabetic nephropathy and diabetes outpatients, and to investigate the factors affected by social support in hemodialysis patients with diabetic nephropathy. A questionnaire investigation was performed in two samples of 33 hemodialysis patients with diabetic nephropathy and 217 diabetes outpatients.
　　The results were as follows: 1) the perceived self-efficacy of diabetes outpatients was higher than that of hemodialysis patients with diabetic nephropathy, 2) in the two subscales of the self-efficacy on health behavior, self-care related items in the subscale of active coping behavior with disease and facing diseases related items in the subscale of controllability for health were higher in diabetes outpatients, 3) a significant positive correlation was found between self-efficacy and age in both hemodialysis patients with diabetic nephropathy and diabetes outpatients, 4) self-efficacy and body weight gain per day had relevance to the social support of hemodialysis patients with diabetic nephropathy.