- Silvia J Santos: California State University, Dominguez Hills.
- Maria T Hurtado-Ortiz: California State University, Dominguez Hills.
- Laurenne Lewis: Department of Children and Family Services.
- Julia Ramirez-Garcia: Casa de la Familia.
This study examined the validity of the Implicit Model of Illness Questionnaire (IMIQ - Schiaffino & Cea, 1995) when used with Latino college students (n = 156; 34% male, 66% female) who are at-risk for developing diabetes due to family history of this disease. An exploratory principal-axis factor analysis yielded four significant factors - curability, personal responsibility, symptom variability/seriousness, and personal attributions - which accounted for 35% of variance and reflected a psychosocial-biomedical common sense perspective of diabetes. Factor-based analyses revealed differences in diabetes illness beliefs based on students' age, generational status, acculturation orientation, and disease experience of the afflicted relative.