Comparing the utility of the integrative model between mothers and fathers for predicting sugar sweetened beverage monitoring in the home environment: Implications for practice

Since the inception of the Integrative Model (IM) little research has been done to fully operationalize its constructs, and evaluate its utility in public health.  Although obesity has many determinants, the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) has gained much interest in recent years.  Public health interventions using both educational and environmental strategies are greatly needed to discourage children from consuming an excessive amount of SSBs, and while many factors influence children’s eating patterns, parental monitoring is oftentimes cited as a major contributor.  Furthermore, differences between how mothers and fathers monitor their children’s behaviors may exist and should be accounted for in the development of public health interventions.  The purpose of this study was to evaluate the utility of the IM for parental monitoring related to SSB consumption, and identify significant gender differences. Fathers (n=117) and mothers (n=178) of elementary school children completed a valid and reliable survey, evaluating constructs of the IM.  Stepwise multiple regression was performed predicting intentions (ex. attitudes) and parental monitoring with key behavioral and environmental antecedents.  Results for predicting intentions found that attitudes, perceived behavioral control, and injunctive-norms were significant predictors for both mothers and fathers, accounting for 52.2% and 51.8% of the variance respectively.  For parental monitoring, intentions was a significant predictors for mothers (p=0.001), while the intention-behavior relationship was much weaker for fathers.   Results suggest that the IM is a practical theory for planning public health interventions.  Further work is needed to better operationalize constructs of the IM that have not been fully explored.