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Does Better Health-Related Knowledge Predict Favorable Health Behavior in Adolescents?

The importance of puberty on later health status and behavior is indisputable, which also means that it is worth making intervention efforts during this period of life. However, whether better health-related knowledge is correlated with favorable health behavior in adolescents is an important, still...

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Autores principales: Nagy-Pénzes, Gabriella, Vincze, Ferenc, Sándor, János, Bíró, Éva
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7084625/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32143530
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17051680
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author Nagy-Pénzes, Gabriella
Vincze, Ferenc
Sándor, János
Bíró, Éva
author_facet Nagy-Pénzes, Gabriella
Vincze, Ferenc
Sándor, János
Bíró, Éva
author_sort Nagy-Pénzes, Gabriella
collection PubMed
description The importance of puberty on later health status and behavior is indisputable, which also means that it is worth making intervention efforts during this period of life. However, whether better health-related knowledge is correlated with favorable health behavior in adolescents is an important, still unanswered question. Our objective was to examine this relationship. The participants were ninth-grade secondary school students. Data were collected using anonymous, self-administered questionnaires. The knowledge-related questions were compiled by the authors, while the questions concerning eating habits, physical activity, demographic and socioeconomic data were taken from the Health Behavior in School-Aged Children survey. The relationship between knowledge and behavior was investigated with structural equation modeling adjusted for gender, age, and socioeconomic status. The results demonstrated a good fit to the data, but better knowledge was not related to behavior in our sample. This finding suggests that adolescents’ health behavior is highly influenced by the living context; therefore, appropriate knowledge is necessary but not sufficient to improve adolescents’ behavior. Hence, comprehensive health promotion programs could provide solutions for encouraging healthy behavior.
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spelling pubmed-70846252020-03-24 Does Better Health-Related Knowledge Predict Favorable Health Behavior in Adolescents? Nagy-Pénzes, Gabriella Vincze, Ferenc Sándor, János Bíró, Éva Int J Environ Res Public Health Article The importance of puberty on later health status and behavior is indisputable, which also means that it is worth making intervention efforts during this period of life. However, whether better health-related knowledge is correlated with favorable health behavior in adolescents is an important, still unanswered question. Our objective was to examine this relationship. The participants were ninth-grade secondary school students. Data were collected using anonymous, self-administered questionnaires. The knowledge-related questions were compiled by the authors, while the questions concerning eating habits, physical activity, demographic and socioeconomic data were taken from the Health Behavior in School-Aged Children survey. The relationship between knowledge and behavior was investigated with structural equation modeling adjusted for gender, age, and socioeconomic status. The results demonstrated a good fit to the data, but better knowledge was not related to behavior in our sample. This finding suggests that adolescents’ health behavior is highly influenced by the living context; therefore, appropriate knowledge is necessary but not sufficient to improve adolescents’ behavior. Hence, comprehensive health promotion programs could provide solutions for encouraging healthy behavior. MDPI 2020-03-04 2020-03 /pmc/articles/PMC7084625/ /pubmed/32143530 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17051680 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Nagy-Pénzes, Gabriella
Vincze, Ferenc
Sándor, János
Bíró, Éva
Does Better Health-Related Knowledge Predict Favorable Health Behavior in Adolescents?
title Does Better Health-Related Knowledge Predict Favorable Health Behavior in Adolescents?
title_full Does Better Health-Related Knowledge Predict Favorable Health Behavior in Adolescents?
title_fullStr Does Better Health-Related Knowledge Predict Favorable Health Behavior in Adolescents?
title_full_unstemmed Does Better Health-Related Knowledge Predict Favorable Health Behavior in Adolescents?
title_short Does Better Health-Related Knowledge Predict Favorable Health Behavior in Adolescents?
title_sort does better health-related knowledge predict favorable health behavior in adolescents?
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7084625/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32143530
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17051680
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