Factors Affecting Exercise Behaviors of Professional Nurses at Psychiatric Hospitals in Northeastern Region of Thailand

Abstract

          The aim of this research was to study the exercise behavior and its relation to biosocial factors, predisposing factors, enabling factors and reinforcing factors, and to determine the good predictors of the exercise behavior among registered nurses at Psychiatric Hospitals in Northeastern region, Thailand. The samples were 233 professional nurses who had worked at Psychiatric Hospitals in Northeastern region, selected by stratified random sampling. Research instrument was a questionnaire consisted of the factors related to exercise behaviors, which yielded the reliability value at 0.95. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistic (percentage, mean, standard deviation), Pearson’s correlation coefficient and multiple regression analysis. The research findings were as follows; professional nurses in Psychiatric Hospitals in Northeastern region had exercise behavior at the moderate level. The factors
such as age, attitude toward exercise, place and sport equipments significantly related to exercise behavior (p= 0.01, r = 0.433). Five factors were identified as good predictors of the exercise behavior including place and sport equipments, age, exercise attitude, perceiving in health status, and marital status, respectively. These factors could predict exercise behavior 15.30 % among registered nurses at Psychiatric Hospitals in Northeastern region