The Relationship Between Health Concerns and Self-efficacy Among New University Students

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between the interest in understanding of health knowledge and health behaviors and the trait of self-efficacy of new university students. We surveyed the level of interest in and understanding of health knowledge of ‘exercise’, ‘diet’ and ‘sleep/rest’, and generalized self-efficacy of 260 new university students. We compared the scores of generalized self-efficacy in the groups based on a combination of the degree of interest in the three health areas and the average number of correct answers in health knowledge. Notably, the group with a higher interest in health and higher understanding of health knowledge had a significantly a higher generalized self-efficacy than the group with a lower interest in health（p< 0.05）. To promote health education and its retention among new university students and to encourage health behaviors based on such knowledge, it was considered that assessing the high level of generalized self-efficacy as an internal factor of individuals would be an effective method.departmental bulletin pape