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Cognitive mediation of intervention effects on physical exercise: causal models for the adoption and maintenance
Reinhard Fuchs1, Harald Seelig, Wiebke Göhner
1Institute of Sport and Sport Science, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany. reinhard.fuchs@sport.uni-freiburg.de
Objective:
To investigate how the effects of a group-based intervention program (MoVo-LISA) on exercise behaviour were mediated by cognitive variables. Different causal models mapping the short-term (adoption) and long-term (maintenance) intervention effects were tested using path analyses.
Design:
N = 220 in-patients of a rehabilitation clinic were assigned to an usual care or intervention group (quasi-experimental design). Questionnaire-based assessment was conducted at baseline; discharge; and at six weeks, six months and 12 months post discharge.
Measures:
The potential mediator variables were outcome expectations, self-efficacy, strength of goal intention (intention strength), self-concordance, action planning and barrier management.
Results:
Observed intervention effects on exercise behaviour (p < 0.05) were mediated by intention strength at the adoption and maintenance stages, by action planning only at the adoption, and by barrier management only at the maintenance stage. Self-efficacy and outcome expectations were only indirectly involved in these mediations by affecting intention strength and self-concordance.
Conclusion:
This is the first study to track the cognitive mediation processes of intervention effects on exercise behaviour over a long time-period by differentiating the adoption and maintenance stages of behaviour change. The findings emphasise the importance of deconstructing intervention effects (modifiability vs. predictive power of a mediator) to develop more effective interventions.
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