Abstract: Objective: To investigate the effect of the nursing intervention based on protection motivation theory on the blood glucose self-monitoring for patients with diabetes mellitus. Methods: A total of 96 patients with diabetes mellitus were recruited and divided into the control group and the intervention group randomly with 48 patients in each group.Patients in control group received routine care and patients in intervention group received a further 3-month protection motivation theory-based nursing intervention besides routine care. We compared the knowledge, skill and protection motivation of blood glucose self-monitoring, blood glucose, and glycosylated hemoglobin between the two groups before and after 3 months of intervention. Results: After the intervention, the scores of the knowledge, skill and protection motivation of blood glucose self-monitoring in intervention group was higher than those of the control group. The blood glucose and glycosylated hemoglobin in intervention group was better than those in the control group. Conclusions:Nursing interventions based on protection motivation theory could enhance the knowledge,skill, and protection motivation of blood glucose self-monitoring, and promote patients' matabolic index to reach the standard.