INTENTIONS AND BEHAVIOR IN WOMEN'S CONTRACEPTION: AN APPLICATION OF THE THEORY OF PLANNED BEHAVIOR.
Contributors: Boston University.
Published: 1988
Number of pages: 215
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Women's Studies.; Psychology, Social.
Description: The purpose of this study was to identify the combined and independent effects of the concepts of the Ajzen model in the explanation and prediction of women's contraceptive intentions and behavior. The Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1985, 1987; Ajzen & Madden, 1986; Schifter & Ajzen, 1985) provided the theoretical framework for the study. The Theory of Planned Behavior is an extension of The Theory of Reasoned Action (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975), which adds the concept of perceived behavioral control as a third determinant of intention (version 1), and behavior (version 2).

A sample of 119 women subjects were selected from one women's health care agency using non-random purposive sampling. Subjects were placed in three subgroups according to contraceptive choice. (pill - n = 99; diaphragm - n = 12; foam and condoms - n = 8).

Subjects completed a Contraceptive Intention Questionnaire which was constructed using information obtained in an elicitation study of 50 women subjects from the target population. Eight weeks later subjects responded via telephone to a follow-up measure of contraceptive behavior during the eight weeks under study.

The results of the investigation provided support for the hypothesized relationships in the Ajzen model. Perceived behavioral control was found to contribute in combination and independently to the prediction of intention, and to improve the prediction of behavior in women taking the birth control pill. While the sample size in two of the subgroups, diaphragm and foam and condoms, made findings and observations tentative, they served to illustrate the relationships and predictive assumptions of the Ajzen model.

Recommendations included replication of the study with subgroups of equal size, randomly selected from each subgroup of the target population using contraceptive-specific questionnaires. Additionally, the construction of a shortened instrument to identify the components of the Ajzen model was proposed for use in nursing practice.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-10, Section: B, page: 4237.

Thesis (D.N.SC.)--BOSTON UNIVERSITY, 1988.

School code: 0017.