Abstract:
The purposes of this study were to examine health promoting behaviors, its correlations and predictive factors between education level, income, depression, prior related behavior, perceived benefits, perceived self-efficacy, perceived barriers, social support and health promoting behaviors of breast cancer survivors in extended survivorship. A conceptual framework used in this study was the Health Promotion Model (Pender, 2006). The subjects wers 259 surviors of breast cancer at 1 month post-treatment and thereafter, undergoing treatment at the Out-Patient Department of King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital, Faculty of Medicine Vajira Hospital and Lopburi Cancer Center. Questionnaires were used to collect personal data, prior related behavior, perceived benefits, perceived self-efficacy, perceived barriers, social support, depression and health promoting behaviors. The questionnaires were tested for their content validity by a panel of expert. Their Cronbachs alpha coefficients were .83, .85, .88, .83, .85, .91 and .88 respeclively. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and stepwise multiple regression. The major findings were as follows: 1) Health promoting behaviors of breast cancer survivors in extended survivorship was at good level ( = 80.92, S.D. = 8.31). 2) Income (r= .13), prior related behavior (r= .80), perceived benefits (r= .47), perceived self-efficacy (r= .54) and social support (r= .50) were significantly and positively related to health promoting behaviors of breast cancer survivors (p< .05). Perceived barriers and depression were significantly and negatively related to health promoting behaviors of breast cancer survivors (p< .05). 3) Prior related behavior (β= .67), perceived benefits (β= .16), perceived self-efficacy (β= .12), perceived barriers (β= -.09) and social support (β= .09) were significant predictors of health promoting behaviors of cancer survivors in extended survivorship (p< .05). They explained 75 percent of the variance in health promoting behaviors