L. Quine et al., PREDICTING AND UNDERSTANDING SAFETY HELMET USE AMONG SCHOOLBOY CYCLISTS - A COMPARISON OF THE THEORY OF PLANNED BEHAVIOR AND THE HEALTH BELIEF MODEL, Psychology & health, 13(2), 1998, pp. 251-269
The paper reports a prospective longitudinal comparison of the Health
Belief Model (Rosenstock, 1966) and the Theory of Planned Behaviour (A
jzen, 1985) in which the ability of the models to predict and understa
nd the factors determining use of protective helmets among 162 schoolb
oy cyclists was examined by path analysis. The TPB emerged with greate
r economy and less redundancy than the HEM. A second path analysis exa
mined whether intention, which is not included among the original comp
onents of the HEM, might mediate the links between the predictor varia
bles and behaviour, and this proved to be correct. Lastly, the effects
of prior behaviour were examined and found to have a significant effe
ct on helmet use in both models. It was concluded that the TPB had gre
ater predictive utility than the HEM. The implications of the findings
are discussed and suggestions for future research are offered.