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The effect of self-efficacy on cardiovascular lifestyle
Berna G M Sol1, Yolanda van der Graaf, Rutger van Petersen
1Department of Vascular Medicine, University Medical Center Utrecht, The Netherlands. B.Sol@umcutrecht.nl
Background:
It is important that patients with vascular diseases adopt a healthy lifestyle so as to reduce vascular risk. Since self-efficacy is an important precondition for health behavior change in patients with chronic disease, we investigated whether self-efficacy was associated with cardiovascular lifestyle in patients with clinical manifestations of vascular diseases.
Methods And Design:
In this observational cohort study, 125 patients who had recently been referred for cerebrovascular disease, coronary heart disease, or peripheral arterial disease participated in a 1-year self-management intervention. They completed a self-efficacy questionnaire and questions about their cardiovascular lifestyle at baseline and after 1 year. Logistic regression analyses were performed to quantify the impact of change in self-efficacy on physical activity, smoking behavior, alcohol consumption, and food choices.
Results:
Improved self-efficacy was associated with improved adherence to guidelines for physical activity (OR 3.5, 95%CI 1.0-11.0) and food choices (B 0.15, 95%CI 0.00-0.31). No such improvement was seen regarding adherence to guidelines for smoking or alcohol intake.
Conclusion:
In patients with vascular diseases, improvements in self-efficacy are associated with an improvement in cardiovascular lifestyle, namely, more exercise and better food choices.
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