Influence of mediating/moderating effects of health skills on the relation between knowledge and behaviors in health, among college students / 中华流行病学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To study the influence of mediating/moderating effects of health skills on the relations between health knowledge and health behaviors in college students.Methods Stratified cluster random sampling was used among 2 181 students,selected in several colleges in Changsha,Hunan province.EpiData 3.0 was adopted to establish the database.Correlation and regression analyses were performed by SPSS 17.0.Results Positive correlations were seen on1)Knowledge and skills on health (r=0.592,P＜0.01),2)Knowledge and behaviors on health (r=0.647,P＜0.01),3)Health skills and health behaviors (r=0.629,P＜0.01).The mediating effect of health skills on the relations between health knowledge and health behaviors was significant (34.55％).The interaction effect of "health skill × (times) related knowledge" was significant (β =-0.093,t =-5.212,P=0.000).New variables that were produced by the interaction also reached significant level (△R2=0.006,P=0.000),resulted in increasing the explanation function to health behaviors by 0.6％.Conclusion Health skills could partially mediate the effects and moderate the relationship between health knowledge and health behaviors among college students.