The Effects of a Health Education Program on Health Promoting Behavior and Self-efficacy in University Students

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to develop a health education program on the health promoting behavior and self-efficacy in university students and evaluate its effects. METHOD: A nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest design was used. The subjects were 148 students [experimental(N=80) and control(N=68) groups] from a university in J City. The experimental group members participated in thirteen sessions of a health education program for fifteen weeks and the degree of their health promoting behavior and self efficacy was evaluated. The instruments for this study were the health promoting lifestyle profile developed by Walker et al.(1987) and self-efficacy scale developed by Sherer & Maddux(1982). Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, Chi-square tests, t-tests, and paired t-test using SPSS 10.0. RESULT: The experimental group had a significantly higher health promoting behavior score(F=10.389, p=.002) than the control group, while no significant difference was found in the self-efficacy score(F=.481, p=.489). CONCLUSION: The results suggest that the health education program can be utilized as an effective program to promote health promoting behavior in university students.