Determining the relationship between health anxiety and healthy lifestyle behaviors, and the factors that affect them: A cross‐sectional study in Turkey

Yi̇ği̇talp, Gülhan; Gümüş, Funda; Aydın, Leyla

doi:10.1111/ppc.12971

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…This finding implies that individuals who experience higher levels regard exercise as a strategy to cope with their anxiety. A study that found an association between health anxiety and the desire to exercise that adds some credence to this viewpoint (Gülhan et al, 2021 ). In addition, a cross-sectional study determined that health anxiety increases the tendency toward healthy lifestyle behaviors such as exercise, good nutrition, and positive interpersonal relationships.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Health risk perception and exercise intention of college students: a moderated mediation model of health anxiety and lay theories of health

Wang,

Liu,

Yang

et al. 2024

Front. Psychol.

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BackgroundHealth risk perception is an important predictor of health-protective behaviors according to the health belief model. However, the underlying mechanism connecting health risk perception and exercise behaviors is not well understood. The current study investigates how health risk perception predicts college students' exercise intention in the post-pandemic era in China and analyzes the mediating effect of health anxiety and the moderating effect of lay theories of health.Materials and methodsThis cross-sectional study adopted convenience sampling and recruited 767 students from a province in central China. The Health Risk Perception Scale, Health Anxiety Scale, Lay Theories of Health Scale, and the Chinese version of the Exercise Intention Scale were used to measure the levels of health risk perception, health anxiety, implicit health theory, and exercise intention, respectively.ResultsThe results of the moderated mediation model indicated that the health risk perception of college students significantly and positively affected exercise intention (β = 0.110, t = 2.852, p < 0.01). Meanwhile, the indirect effect of health anxiety on the relationship between health risk perception and exercise intention was significant. Furthermore, lay theories of health buffered the association between health anxiety and exercise intention, according to the moderated mediation analysis (β = 0.068, t = 2.067, p < 0.05). For college students holding incremental health theory, the influence of health anxiety on exercise intention was positively and statistically significant.ConclusionThe health risk perception of college students can lead to health anxiety, which can positively affect their exercise intention. In addition, lay theories of health can moderate the effect of health anxiety on exercise intention. The results have practical implications for developing effective, applicable, and scalable interventions to promote physical exercise by reducing the level of entity theory of health or increasing the level of incremental theory.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%