Investigation of the Efficacy of Health Belief Model Constructs in the Prediction of Preventive Nutritional Behaviors of Stomach Cancer

Given the prevalence of stomach cancer, the role of behavior in the prevention of this cancer and efficacy of Health Belief Model (HBM) constructs in the prediction of wide range of health-related behaviors, the present study was performed to determine the efficacy of HBM constructs in the prediction of preventive nutritional behaviors of stomach cancer among female students residing in dormitories of Yazd University.
In this cross-sectional study, 124 female students residing in dormitories of Yazd University, were selected through available sampling (non-random) method. Data were collected by a researcher-made questionnaire and analyzed by Pearson's correlation coefficient, one-way ANOVA, t-test, and multiple linear regression.
The mean age of the students was 25.39±2.91 years. Ninety-five percent of participants reported many barriers for adopting preventive behaviors and only 1% performed the preventive behaviors at the desirable level. The results showed that perceived barriers variable could explain 13% of students’ nutrition behavior for prevention of stomach cancer (r2=13%, f=7.45, p The result of this study showed that perceived barriers construct is the only predictor variable of nutrition behaviors in the prevention of stomach cancer. Therefore, conducting intervention programs is necessary to reduce perceived barriers for the prevention of stomach cancer.