Self-efficacy and physical health care in Mexican adolescents

Abstract

Self-efficacy is an essential element to obtain or perfect healthy behaviors. The goal of the study was to predict physical health care in high school students, from gender and self-efficacy factors in physical health care (avoidance of tobacco consumption, avoidance of consumption of alcohol, eating care and coping with problems), using structural equation modelling. A total of 468 subjects took part in the study, 270 women and 198 men, all high school students from Mexico. The results show that gender and health care self-efficacy factors indirectly influence stress and the use of addictive substances. The set of variables explain adolescents' perceived stress; the variables contemplated in the model explain 27% of the total variance in the level of perceived stress. Regarding the prediction of health care through gender and the factors of self-efficacy in physical health care, most of the initially proposed hypotheses model has been fulfilled; in such a way that gender, the use of addictive substances and self-efficacy in coping with problems have a direct positive effect on stress. While physical exercise and selfefficacy in eating care, exert a direct negative effect.