Self-efficacy for eating a healthy diet can moderate the impact of stress on diet quality

Introduction. Family child care home (FCCH) providers are individuals who care for children in their own home. This group has been identified as at-risk for high stress and poor sleep quality, contributing to poor health behaviors. High self-efficacy for the diet may moderate the relationship between these risk factors and diet quality. Little research has examined how these factors may relate to one another when describing the health of FCCH providers.Methods. We utilized baseline data on FCCH providers from the cluster-randomized control trial Keys to a Healthy Family Child Care Home. We estimated correlations between self-reported perceived stress, sleep quality, diet self-efficacy and diet quality. A linear regression including interaction terms was run to assess how diet self-efficacy may moderate the relationships between perceived stress and sleep quality, respectively, and diet quality. Results. Perceived stress and sleep quality were not significantly correlated with diet quality in this population. However, diet self-efficacy was identified as a moderator of the association between perceived stress and diet quality. With high diet self-efficacy, increasing perceived stress was associated with improved diet quality.Conclusion. Improving self-efficacy may be one critical strategy for improving the health of a population at-risk for poor behaviors. As FCCH providers care for many children and model behaviors, improving their diet quality may positively impact the children in their care.Bachelor of Science in Public Healt