Objective To explore the effect of humanistic care on quality of life and self-efficacy of diabetic patients. Methods According to the principle of convenience sampling, 135 patients with diabetes mellitus from January 2016 to June 2016 were randomly divided into two groups according to the random number table method. The patients in the observation group were treated with fishbone analysis to analyze the quality of life and the self-efficacy, and the patients were given humanistic nursing care. The patients in the control group were treated with routine diabetes care. After 6 months of care, the quality of life and self-efficacy were analyzed between the two groups. Results After treatment, the quality of life scores in the observation group (50.33 ± 3.02, 30.55 ± 2.03, 17.20 ± 2.01, 12.35 ± 0.87) were significantly higher than those in the control group (41.57 ± 3.46, 23.60±2.17,13.55±2.34, 9.02±0.64) , the difference between the two groups was statistically significant (t=8.112-21.137, all P <0.01); The score of self-efficacy in the observation group (30.52 ± 2.33) was significantly higher than that in the control group (24.69 ± 1.98), the difference between the two groups was statistically significant (t=13.072, P<0.01). Conclusions Humanistic care can significantly improve the quality of life and self-efficacy of patients with diabetes mellitus. The application of the nursing model in patients with diabetes has significant effect, which is worthy of clinical application.