Factors Influencing Health Promoting Behavior among Peripheral Arterial Disease Patients

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to examine illness perception, knowledge about the disease and health promoting behaviors, and to identify factors influencing health promoting behaviors among Peripheral Arterial Disease (PAD) patients. METHODS: The participants were 128 PAD patients who had been treated as an outpatient or an inpatient at the department of cardiology in a tertiary hospital in Seoul, Korea. Data were collected from October to December 2014, regarding general characteristics, disease related characteristics, illness perception and knowledge on PAD, health promoting behaviors by using a structured questionnaire. RESULTS: The number of subjects who had an awareness of PAD diagnosis was 70 (54.7%) among 128. In this study, knowledge on PAD was significantly correlated with health promoting behaviors (r=0.205, P=0.020). Especially, knowledge on PAD had a significant correlation with health responsibility (r=0.353, P<0.001) and exercise (r=0.230, P=0.009). In the regression analysis, knowledge on PAD was a factor that influences the health promoting behavior in this study subjects (R2=0.212, P=0.032). CONCLUSIONS: We could determine the degree of perception, knowledge, and health promoting behaviors among participants and the influence of PAD-related knowledge on health promoting behaviors. Conclusively, the results of this study support the development of education intervention to ameliorate disease perception and PAD related knowledge in order to improve health promoting behaviors among PAD patients.