Men’s depressive symptoms, health beliefs, masculinity, and heart-healthy behaviors: Examining moderators of a mediated model.

Abstract

Four hundred fifty-nine men from the United States were recruited online and participated in our study examining men's depressive symptoms, health beliefs, health behaviors, and conformity to masculine norms. Path analyses using Hayes' PROCESS model tested the conditional indirect effects among the variables with conformity to the masculine norms of emotional control and self-reliance as moderators. Results indicated that (a) depressive symptoms predicted men perceiving fewer benefits and more barriers to heart-healthy behaviors, (b) depressive symptoms had a direct effect to fewer heart-healthy behaviors, (c) perceived benefits related to reporting more heart-healthy behaviors and mediated the relationship between depressive symptoms and health behaviors, (d) perceived barriers related to fewer heart-healthy behaviors and mediated the relationship between depressive symptoms and health behaviors, (e) conformity to emotional control related to fewer perceived barriers, fewer heart-healthy behaviors, and moderated the relationship between perceived barriers and health behaviors, and (f) conformity to self-reliance was associated with more perceived barriers to heart-healthy behaviors. Efforts to improve men's health should aim to increase men's perceived benefits and to reduce perceived barriers to healthy living associated with depression, identify specific benefits and barriers men experience in adopting healthy behaviors, and anticipate how emotional control exacerbates how men's depressive symptoms interfere with healthy living. Public Significance StatementMen's depression and health risk behaviors co-occur and contribute to negative outcomes from human suffering to economic losses of productivity. The findings from this study suggest that men's depression is associated with health-related beliefs that explain their risky health behaviors and that their conformity to emotional control exacerbates the effect of perceived barriers to healthy living.