[[alternative]]A Comparative Study of Physical Activity and Exercising Social Psychology Condition of Asthmatic and Non-asthmatic Students

[[abstract]]Asthma is the most common chronic disease during childhood and adolescence, which influences students’ daily life and study, probably including their physical activity. The object of this study was to compare the physical activity as well as exercising social psychology condition of asthmatic and non-asthmatic students. The method adopted was cross-sectional survey and the population was the first-grade and second-grade students of a junior high school in Taipei County during the school year 2001-02. By using a matched sampling method, 533 subjects were surveyed with structured questionnaires；382 provided their three-day physical activity record. Percentage, mean, t-test, Chi-square test, one-way ANOVA, logistic regression, and Pearson product-moment correlation were used to analyze the data. The main findings of this study were as follows: 1.The scores of exercise-induced asthma knowledge were significantly different among current asthmatic, ever asthmatic and non-asthmatic students. 2.The exercise frequency and exercise hours a week of non- asthmatic students were both significantly higher than asthmatic ones. 3.There was no significant difference in the quantity of physical activity between asthmatic and non-asthmatic students. 4.It demonstrated that non-asthmatic students had higher perceived benefit for exercise than current asthmatic, while their difference in exercising self-efficacy, perceived barrier for exercise, social support for exercise and exercising role modeling were not apparent. 5.It presented that quality of physical activity had positive relationship with exercising self-efficacy, perceived benefit for exercise, social support for exercise, and exercising role modeling. Conversely, it had negative relationship to perceived barrier for exercise. Based on the results, it has provided some suggestions to future study and intervention.