Adherence in CABG Patients: An Empirical Test of a Health Behavior Model

To benefit from a Coronary Artery Bypass Graft Surgery (CABG), patients must adhere to their therapeutic regimen. To test the extent of which the Information-Motivation-Behavioral Skills (IMB) model constructs explain the variability in adherence behaviors in CABG patients, and also to examine the relationship between the IMB model constructs, CABG patients (N = 152) were randomly assigned to either an intervention group, or a standard care control group. They com-pleted pretest measures, and were reassessed later. Although perfect replication of the IMB mod-el’s predicted pathways was not achieved in this study, support for several of these pathways was demonstrated. The estimated model for adherence-demonstrated good fit of the data. Motivation was a significant predictor of adherence behavior in CABG patients. These findings suggest that IMB model-based intervention that improves motivation can enhance adherence. Therefore, CABG patients ’ education programs should mainly target motivation in order to affect adherence beha-vior