Prediction of the Students’ Intention to the Consumption of Soft Drinks: Using the Extended Parallel Process Model

Background: soft drinks consumption is a major world public health concern. this study investigates the factors which influence the students’ intention to consume fewer amounts of soft drinks, using the extended parallel process model. methods: this cross-sectional study was conducted on 320 high schools boys in yazd, iran (2014). a 15-item, 5-point likerttype scale questionnaire was used to measure the participants’ perceived susceptibility, severity, response-efficacy and selfefficacy and intention about soft drinks’ consumption. internal consistency (cronbach alpha >0.7 for each construct) and external consistency: r=0.79, p=0.01) of questionnaire was approved. data were analyzed by spss 16, using descriptive analysis, bivariate correlation, and stepwise multiple regression analysis. the level of significance was set at 0.05. results: the participants’ average soft drink consumption was 3±3.4 daily glasses. danger control processes had more frequency over fear control ones (57.7% vs. 42.3% of participants). the intention of fewer amounts soft drinks consumption was positively correlated with perceived response efficacy, selfefficacy and total efficacy. 16% of the participants’ intention variations were explained by self-efficacy. the odds of intention towards not to consume soft drinks were significantly higher for the high efficacy/ low threat category (or=1.51, p=0.04) compared with low efficacy / low threat category. conclusion: the results revealed that inducing fear is not an effective way to promote healthy drinking behavior and the choice of fear appeals is often a poor choice in this subject. it can be suggested that health educators should move from traditional threatening fear arousal messages to improving their target audience’s self-efficacy.