Abstract
Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships of self-efficacy, social influences, decisional balance, consistency in past contraceptive use, and stages of change for contraceptive use in college students. Study design: A cross-sectional correlational study was conducted on a convenience sample of 185 Korean college students. Data collection was conducted by three trained research assistants over a six-month period in 2013. Path analysis with AMOS software was used to identify the effects of predictor variables on stages of change for contraceptive use. Results: Social influences, consistency in past contraception use, and self-efficacy had a direct effect on the stages of change for contraception use. Although decisional balance did not show a direct effect, it had a significant indirect effect on the stages of change through self-efficacy. These predicting variables explained 40% of the variance of stages of change for contraception use. Conclusions: The results suggested that the TTM is useful in explaining college students’ contraceptive behavior and that self-efficacy partially mediated the role of cognitive (social influence) and behavioral (past contraception use) factors on the stages of change for contraceptive use.
Highlights
College students are generally a sexually active group, as most of them have already engaged in intercourse in their lifetimes and more than two thirds of them report current sexual activity [1,2]
The present study verified the usefulness of transtheoretical model (TTM) in understanding factors affecting contraceptive behaviors in college students
Consistent with prior study results guided by the TTM [8,9, 14], self-efficacy and decisional balance partially mediated the role of cognitive and behavioral factors on the stages of change for contraceptive use
Summary
College students are generally a sexually active group, as most of them have already engaged in intercourse in their lifetimes and more than two thirds of them report current sexual activity [1,2]. About 1 in 5 sexually active students does not use contraception or uses traditional methods such as periodic abstinence and withdrawal [1,2,3]. This may result in negative social and physical consequences including unwanted pregnancy and abortion. Studies from several countries including Turkey, Korea, and the U.S have shown that 5-22% of college students who have had intercourse had the experience of unwanted pregnancy or got someone pregnant unintentionally [2,3,4,5]. The current study tested hypothesized relationships between predicting variables of the stages of change for contraceptive use, guided by the transtheoretical model (TTM)
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