Intention to change multiple health risk behaviors and predictors of behavior change in vocational education students

Abstract

Objective: No studies have examined vocational education students’ intention to change multiple health risk behaviors and whether baseline characteristics predict behavior change. Participants: Paticipants were vocational education students in New South Wales, Australia. Methods: Students in the no-intervention control arm of a cluster randomized controlled trial completed an online survey at baseline and 6 months later. Results: Of 450 participants (83.3%) who reported multiple health risk behaviors at baseline, one-third (33.1%) intended to change at least two risk behaviors within 6 months. Participants experiencing symptoms of anxiety [OR = 7.43, 95% CIs 1.26–43.87; p = 0.03] and who intended to change three to four risk behaviors [OR = 23.30, 95% CIs 4.01–135.40; p = 0.001] rather than one behavior had significantly greater odds of changing at least one behavior in 6 months. Conclusions: Interventions could support vocational education students to change behaviors they wish to as well as motivate them to address other risk behaviors.

Keywords:

• Intention to change
• multiple health risk behaviors
• vocational education students

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of Australia and received approval from the University of Newcastle Human Research Ethics Committee.

Funding

This study was funded by a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) project grant (APP1124462). Prince Atorkey was supported by a 50/50 College of Health, Medicine and Wellbeing, University of Newcastle PhD Scholarship. Flora Tzelepis was supported by a NHMRC Career Development Fellowship (APP1143269). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.