Assessing Stages of Exercise Behavior Change, Self Efficacy and Decisional Balance in Iranian Nursing and Midwifery Students

Abstractbackgroundregular physical activity contributes positively to physiological and psychological health. thisstudy aimed to identify exercise behavior changes, self efficacy and decisional balance in nursingand midwifery students.methodsthis is a cross-sectional study carried out in iran. all undergraduate nursing and midwiferystudents (n=300) participated in this study. data were collected using a standard questionnairedeveloped by wakui including demographic information, exercise stages of change (using a5-item, dichotomous (yes/no) scale), exercise self efficacy (5 item using likert scale) and exercisedecisional balance (12 item using likert scale). validity and reliability was checked by the panel ofexperts and test retest correlation, respectively. descriptive statistics (frequency and percentage)and analytical tests (correlation, independent t-test, one way anova) were used for analysis.resultsin total, 41 subjects were males (13.6%) and 259 females (86.3%). according to the results, 23.3%of the students were in pre-contemplation, 29% in contemplation, 32.6% in preparation, 7.3% inaction and 7.3% in maintenance stages of changes in exercise behaviors. significant differenceswere found in the individual efficacy scores, pros and cons of decisional balance in different stagesof changes of exercise behavior. significant differences were found between the pre-contemplationand other groups by post–hoc follow up test (p < 0.05). no significant differences were found betweennursing and midwifery students in secq scores and also between academic year, and self efficacyand pros and cons of decisional balance scores (p > 0.05).conclusionthis study showed that a large number of nursing and midwifery students were in the inactivestage. so, exploring effective strategies for directing students from inactive to active stage andmotivating them to follow the appropriate exercise behavior seem to be necessary.