Construction of Exercise Behavior Model in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis

Background: despite the awareness that regular exercise has a positive impact on maintaining health, patients with rheumatoid arthritis (ra) engage in markedly less exercise than do the general population. weaimed to construct and test a structural equation model of exercise behavior in patients with ra based on self-determination theory and self-efficacy theory. methods: participants were 214 outpatients with ra at chonnam national university hospital located in the gwangju city, south korea from mar to apr 2018. a structured self-report questionnaire was used to assess autonomy support, autonomy, competence, relatedness, autonomous motivation, self-efficacy, and exercise behavior. collected data were analyzed using spss 22.0 and amos 22.0 program. results: the structural model showed a good fitness with the data (χ2= 727.27, df = 392, p<0.001, tli = 0.92, cfi = 0.93, rmsea = 0.07, srmr = 0.07). autonomous motivation and self-efficacy had a significant effect on exercise behavior in patients with ra. this model explained 21.2% of the variance of exercise behavior in patients with ra. conclusion: self-efficiency and autonomous motivation should be promoted in order to strengthen the exercise behavior of patients with ra.