The Influence of Predisposing, Enabling, and Reinforcing Factors on Certain Health Behaviors (School; Nigeria).

Abstract

Despite the importance of health to the welfare of individuals and to development of the nation, Nigeria still has major problems with health practices. Nutritional and communicable diseases still produce very high morbidity and mortality rates. Having assumed that certain behaviors were responsible for this high morbidity and mortality, this study proposed to assess the sanitation and nutrition behaviors of form V (high school) students in Lagos state, Nigeria to establish baseline data on such practices. The influences of predisposing, enabling and reinforcing factors on these two dependent variables (i.e., sanitation and nutrition behavior), were studied. A cross-sectional survey of sanitation and nutritional practices was conducted among form V students in Lagos state, Nigeria. A stratified r and om sample of 400 students from ten public schools situated in the urban, suburban and rural areas was used. The methods of analysis included: descriptive statistics, analysis of variance and multiple classification analysis. The following conclusions were drawn: (1) The PRECEDE framework which was used as a basis for conception of this study was validated; that is predisposing, enabling and reinforcing factors were indeed significantly related (P < .01) to health behavior (i.e., nutrition and sanitation practices) among form V students. (2) Each of the three major predictors mentioned above showed a significant relationship (P < .05) with health behavior. (3) There was no significant difference in mean scores (P < .05) on health behavior, nutrition behavior and sanitation behavior when compared across urban, suburban and rural areas of the high schools. (4) Reinforcing factors played the most important roles as predictors of health behavior among form V students in Lagos. This was also true independently for both nutrition and sanitation behaviors. (5) Health knowledge was not a good predictor of health behavior while parental and peer health behavior were. (6) Finally, this study showed that the lack of money does not prevent one from having good health promotive behavior. Finally, recommendations for further research and curriculum development were proposed.