A preliminary investigation of health decision-making among a sample of victimized women on probation and parole through structural equation modeling

The present study investigated health decision-making among a sample of 350 women on probation and parole in Jefferson County, Kentucky. The Theory of Reasoned Action/Theory of Planned Behavior (TRA/TPB) was used to examine decision-making as it pertains to smoking behavior. The research had two objectives: (a) evaluation of social norms, perceived control, and attitudes as mediators in this relationship between one's tobacco use history and intention to terminate the smoking behavior; and (b) to examine the ability to translate the TRA/TPB to the behaviors of women on probation and parole. Specifically, structural equation modeling was used to examine the relationship between current smoking behavior and intention to quit smoking, mediated by social norms, perceived control and attitudes towards smoking. Both a measurement and structural model were tested. Final model fit was fair: CFI= .958; TLI= .921; RMSEA=.068 (.031-.091; with 40% of the variance of intention to perform was explained by the model. Findings indicate that while the model constructs provided a fair description of the data there may be other factors that need to be identified to better understand smoking behavior among this population. These findings have broad relevance for practice and intervention with higher risk populations of female smokers. Specifically, there may be a need for more comprehensive interventions that provide such things as social support. Future research should investigate other mediators that would help fully understand the smoking behavior, as well as other health behaviors.