Intentions Toward Physical Activity and Resting Behavior in Pregnant Women: Using the Theory of Planned Behavior Framework in a Cross-Sectional Study

BACKGROUND: Pregnant women are recommended to 1) perform daily moderate-intensity physical activity and 2) limit the amount of sedentary time. Many women do not meet these recommendations. Reduced physical activity and increased sedentary behavior may result from women actively intending to rest during pregnancy. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) has been used to assess attitudes (e.g., positive/negative beliefs), subjective norms (e.g., perception of others' views), perceived behavioral control (PBC) (e.g., self-efficacy), and intention toward exercising while pregnant but has not been applied to aspects pertaining to resting during pregnancy.

METHODS: Pregnant women (n = 345) completed a cross-sectional questionnaire that included two TPB Questionnaires where the target behaviors were 1) being physically active and 2) resting. Bootstrapped paired t tests, ANOVA, and linear hierarchal regression analyses were performed to identify predictors of intentions and whether intentions toward the two behaviors varied at different stages of pregnancy.

RESULTS: As women progressed in their pregnancy, their attitude, PBC, and intention toward being physically active all significantly declined. A positive attitude, subjective norms, and intention toward resting all significantly increased with the advancing trimester. Self-reported health conditions predicted lower intention for physical activity but not for resting.

DISCUSSION: The significantly inverse relationship between physical activity and resting across time suggests that women feel they should focus on one behavior at the expense of the other. Finding that women generally do not perceive these behaviors as mutually compatible has implications in strategizing as to how to encourage women to be active during pregnancy.

Systematically retrieving research in the digital age: Case study on the topic of social networking sites and young people’s mental health

Online information seeking has become normative practice among both academics and the general population. This study appraised the performance of eight databases to retrieve research pertaining to the influence of social networking sites on the mental health of young people. A total of 43 empirical studies on young people’s use of social networking sites and the mental health implications were retrieved. Scopus and SSCI had the highest sensitivity with PsycINFO having the highest precision. Effective searching requires large
generic databases, supplemented by subject-specific catalogues. The methodology developed here may provide inexperienced searchers, such as undergraduate students, with a framework to define a realistic scale of searching to undertake for a particular literature review or similar project.