Title

Psychological Factors, Health Care Knowledge, and Experiences and How They Impact Students’ Illness Behaviors on a Rural Campus

Document Type

Book

Authors

Elizabeth Pappenfus, University of Minnesota - Morris
Chelsea Walsh, University of Minnesota - Morris

Files

Description

When entering college, most students go through critical transitional and developmental stages into adulthood (Montgomery & Cote, 2003). Therefore, it is necessary that college students use health care appropriately and maintain a good health status by exhibiting positive illness behaviors. Illness behavior is defined as the manner in which a person monitors their body, interprets their symptoms, and how they react to those symptoms. In the current study, the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) (Ajzen, 1985) model, which combines attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived control in order to predict health decision-making behavior, was used. In this study, we examined the current factors (i.e. past experiences, education, demographics as barriers, attitudes, and social support) that affect health-care seeking behavior intentions by students. We hypothesized that a high knowledge about health care, positive health care experiences, strong social support, and stable psychological variables (i.e. positive healthcare seeking attitudes) will better predict students’ illness behavior choices; while a rural setting could create negative barriers and predict lower health care utilization.

Publication Date

4-2013

Keywords

College students--Health and hygiene; College students--Medical care

Disciplines

Health Psychology | Psychology

Recommended Citation

Pappenfus, Elizabeth and Walsh, Chelsea, "Psychological Factors, Health Care Knowledge, and Experiences and How They Impact Students’ Illness Behaviors on a Rural Campus" (2013). Undergraduate Research Symposium 2013. 9.
https://digitalcommons.morris.umn.edu/urs_2013/9

Primo Type

Conference Proceeding