Changes in lifestyle are often a requirement for cardiac patients in order to reduce the progression of heart disease. The primary goal of this project is to test two social learning strategies, modeling and self-modeling, as interventions to increase patients' (1) perceptions of self-efficacy for exercise, (2) exercise behavior, (3) participation in cardiac rehabilitation, (4) functional status, and, (5) physical activity.
The specific aim of the project is to answer the following: Do patients who experience exercise self-modeling by viewing a video tape of their own successful exercise behavior while hospitalized after a myocardial infarction (MI) have greater exercise self-efficacy at the time of discharge from the hospital as well as greater exercise self-efficacy, exercise behavior, participation in cardiac rehabilitation, functional status, and physical activity at three and six months and one year than patients who: a) do not watch any specific video tape presentation; b) witness successful exercise behavior of an individual other than themselves by video tape; and c) view a health video unrelated to exercise. One hundred forty-four patients hospitalized for MI will be randomly assigned to one of four comparison groups. All patients will complete the Cardiac Exercise Self-efficacy Instrument (Hickey, Owen, & Froman, 1992), an exercise log, the Duke Activity Status Index (Hlatky et al., 1989) and the American Habitual Physical Activity Index (Burns & Froman, 1993; 1994). All will be followed for participation in cardiac rehabilitation. Analysis of variance and repeated measure multivariate analysis of covariance will answer the research questions. Post hoc univariate comparisons are planned. This project has the potential to identify an inexpensive means to increase patients' self-efficacy for exercise, exercise behavior, functional status, and physical activity. Self-efficacy is known to be a consistent predictor of health related behavior (Holden, 1992). Success at this project will form the foundation for future intervention trials aimed to enhance patients' self-efficacy for comprehensive risk reduction behavior.
