Health Belief and Performance of Health Behaviors of some University Students in Korea

Lee, Byung Sook; Kim, Mi Young; Kim, Mi Hyun; Kim, Sun Kyung

Abstract

Health belief is an important factor influencing the performance of health behaviors. Young adulthood is a critical period to establish health beliefs and behaviors for a healthy life. As health professionals, nurses can help young people establish more positive health beliefs and carry out health behaviors more effectively. But before attempting to help them, it is necessary to identify their health beliefs and behaviors. The purpose of this study was to identify the health beliefs and health behaviors of university students in Korea. Subjects for this study were 2000 students from 10 universities, but data from only 1605 subjects was included in the analysis. Data were collected from May 5th, 1998 to June 21th, 1998. Instruments used in this study were two tools to measure 'health beliefs' and 'performance of health behaviors' that had been developed and used in previous research. Cronbach's alphas were .8737 for the tool for health beliefs and .8385 for the tool for health behaviors. The results of this study are as follows. (1) Average score of the subjects was 117.68 for health belief and 95.15 for performance of health behaviors. (2) There was a significant correlation between the health belief and the performance of health behaviors(r= .419). (3) School year, major, health status, and experience of disease in the students were important factors in the explanation of health belief(28.8%). (4) Health belief, major, health status, school year, sex, age, experience of disease in family members were important factors in the explanation of the performance of health behaviors (21.2%).