The Factors affecting Health Behaviors of a Mother with Infants and Toddlers

This study was conducted to investigate the effect of mother’s health belief and health knowledge on health behaviors and to provide basic data for the development of community health care programs for infants and toddlers Data collected from 331 mothers who had infants and toddlers. The questionnaire included general characteristics, health behavior, heath belief, health knowledge. The average of mother’s health belief was 3.34±0.34 and the average of health behaviors towards their children and of health knowledge were 3.90±0.42 and 22.13±3.18, respectively. In the relation among mother’s health knowledge, health belief and health behaviors towards their children, the higher health knowledge, the higher the level of health belief and health behaviors, the higher health belief, the higher the level of health behaviors. Factors affecting health behaviors included self-efficacy, health knowledge, perceived benefits, children’s health condition in order of how influential the factors in health behaviors. In the result, it was demonstrated that health knowledge affected health behaviors because the higher health knowledge, the higher the level of health belief. Therefore, continuous health education programs are required for mothers with infants and considering working mother’s health promotional literature needs to be produced and delivered regularly in order to increase mother’s health knowledge level.