Fear of Negative Evaluation and Self Efficacy as Correlates of health Seeking Behaviour among Adolescents

Abstract

This study examined fear of negative evaluation and self-efficacy as correlates of health seeking behaviour among adolescents. Three hundred and fifty participants consisting of 121 (34%) males and 229 (65%) females and who were within the age range of 12 to 20 years, with a mean age of 16.03 and standard deviation of 1.44 responded to the three study instruments. These were Fear of negative self-evaluation Scale, General Self-efficacy Scale and Health seeking behaviours Questionnaire. Correlation design was adopted for the study while Pearson Product
Moment Correlation Coefficient and independent t-test was employed to analyze the data. The result revealed that fear of negative evaluation did not significantly correlate with health seeking behaviour among adolescents at r(148)= -.041 at p>. 05. Also, it was found that self-efficacy significantly influence health seeking behaviour among adolescents at t(348)= 2.03, p<.05, level of significance. The study concluded that fear of negative evaluation and self-efficacy influence an individual’s health-seeking behaviour. It was recommended that parents and teachers should
promote students self-efficacy by encouraging them to engage in a healthy behaviour.