Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop health promotion programs for middle aged women and to identify the adaptability and the effectiveness of the program in order to provide a model for health promotion programs as a basis for nursing intervention. The research design was a quasi-experimental, nonequivalent control-group pretest-posttest design. The data were collected from October 30 to December 11, 1996. The study subjects were middle aged women residing in Chonju city, with ages from 40 to 59. The experimental group consisted of 42 subjects who were recruited through announcements of the local newspaper. The control group consisted of 49 subjects who were mothers of nursing college students. The health promotion program for middle aged women was based on the Bandura's self efficacy theory and Pender's heath promotion behavior theory consisting of exercise and heath diaries as performance accomplishments as well as education and group sessions as verbal persuasion and vicarious experiences. The study program was provided for 6 weeks, 3 hours a day per week. There was a pretest before the program and a posttest after the 6 week program. The instruments used for the study were a Self Efficacy Scale and a Health Promotion Behavior Scale developed by Park(1995). The data analysis was done by the use of a SPSS/PC. The study results were as follows: 1. In the analysis of the homogeneity between the experimental and control groups, there were significant differences in the socio-demographic characteristics, self efficacy and health promotion behavior. There were significant differences between the experimental and control groups in occupation, the number of children, and the status of involvement in social activities. 2. The first hypothesis, "The level of self efficacy of the experimental group will be higher than that of the control group." was supported(F=10.154, p=.002). The second hypothesis, "The degree of health promotive behaviors in the experimental group will be higher than that of the control group." was supported(F=17.349, p=.000). 3. There was a significant positive correlation between the self efficacy and the health promotion behaviors in pretest and posttests (pretest: r=.732, p=.000 ; posttest : r=.754, p=.000). 4. The significant variables for health promotion behaviors were religion(t=-1.97, p=.05), family income(F=4.85, p=.00), education level (F=6.38, p=.00) and involvement in social activities(t=-3.06, p=.00) in socio-demographic characteristics. In summary, a heath promotion program based on self efficacy theory has made an improvement on health promotion behaviors. Also, the results show that the higher the level of self efficacy, the better the health promotion is in middle aged women. The study has proved that nurses can provide nursing intervention for the improvement of health promotion in middle aged women through the adaptation of a program increasing the subject's self efficacy level.