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.