title: Relationship between healthy lifestyle behaviors and health locus of control and health-specific self-efficacy in university students.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate the relationship between the healthy lifestyle behaviors and the health locus of control and health-specific self-efficacy in university students.
  
  
  METHODS
  The study included 572 undergraduate students of a university in the central Anatolia region of Turkey. The data were collected with the General Characteristics Form, the Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile II, the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control Scale, and the Perceived Health Competence Scale and investigated with the structural equation model.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Health-specific self-efficacy was an important predictor of healthy lifestyle behaviors. The Internal health locus of control influenced the healthy lifestyle behaviors through health-specific self-efficacy. The other dimension was the Powerful Others health locus of control that affected healthy lifestyle behaviors, both directly and indirectly, through health-specific self-efficacy. There was a chance that the health locus of control had a negative effect on healthy lifestyle behaviors through self-efficacy.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Health-specific self-efficacy is an important prerequisite for changes in healthy lifestyle behaviors, which supports Pender's model. The subscales of the health locus of control vary in their effects on healthy lifestyle behaviors, which partly supports Pender's model. Nurses, by using this model, can examine ways of improving these cognitive-perceptual factors and implement health education programs that are directed towards improving them in young persons.
authors.affiliation: Republic of Turkey Ministry of Health, General Directorate of Health Services, Ankara, Turkey.
authors.forename: Serap
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Açıkgöz Çepni
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Nursing, Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey.
authors.forename: Yeter
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kitiş
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D005260:Female; D006293:Health Promotion; D000070497:Healthy Lifestyle; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D008297:Male; D010465:Perception; D020377:Self Efficacy; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D014421:Turkey; D014495:Universities; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: health locus of control; healthy lifestyle behavior; self-efficacy; university students