title: Predictors of a health-promoting lifestyle and behaviors among low-income African American mothers and white mothers of chronically ill children.
abstract: This study used Health Self-Empowerment (HSE) Theory as a framework for examining the predictors of engagement in both a health-promoting lifestyle and individual health-promoting behaviors among low-income African American mothers and non-Hispanic white mothers (N = 96), each of whom is the primary caregiver for a chronically ill adolescent. The individual health-promoting behaviors investigated are eating a healthy diet, exercising consistently, stress management practices, and health responsibility behaviors. The examined HSE Theory-based predictor variables were health self-efficacy, active coping, health motivation, and health self-praise. Multiple regression analyses revealed that these predictor variables together accounted for a significant amount of variance (67%) in level of engagement in a health-promoting lifestyle. Additionally, active coping, health self-praise, health self-efficacy, and health motivation were significant individual predictors of 1 or more individual health-promoting behaviors. Findings from this study suggest that further research should be conducted to assess the usefulness of HSE Theory in predicting level of engagement in health-promoting behaviors and to examine the effectiveness of HSE Theory-based interventions for increasing health-promoting behaviors among women similar to those in this study. The findings also suggest that health care providers should promote active coping, health self-praise, health self-efficacy, and health motivation to increase health-promoting behaviors among patients who are similar to those in this study.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA. cmtucker@ufl.edu
authors.forename: Carolyn M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Tucker
authors.forename: Ashley M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Butler
authors.forename: Imicuk S
authors.initials: IS
authors.lastname: Loyuk
authors.forename: Frederic F
authors.initials: FF
authors.lastname: Desmond
authors.forename: Sharon L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Surrency
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American; D000368:Aged; D017028:Caregivers; D002908:Chronic Disease / Q000208:ethnology / Q000628:therapy*; D005260:Female; D005431:Florida; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006293:Health Promotion; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008019:Life Style; D008875:Middle Aged; D009035:Mothers / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011203:Poverty; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011582:Psychological Theory; D020377:Self Efficacy; D044465:White People