ASSOCIATION OF HEALTH LOCUS CONTROL THEORY AND SELF-ESTEEM WITH PHYSICAL ACTIVITY IN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Background and Meeting the physical movement requirements of community members will remarkably increase its power. Studies on the effect of self-esteem and health locus of control (HLC) in inducing healthy behaviors have provided a scientific framework for these concepts in public health and health psychology. The present study investigates the relationship of physical activities and self-esteem with health locus of control in athletic and non-athletic university students. Methods and Materials: The research is a case-control study involving 74 athletic university students (cases) and 74 non-athletics (controls) from Gonabad University of Medical University. Data were collected by a demographic questionnaire Self-esteem scale and MHLC-Form B. The obtained data were analyzed in SPSS 11.5 using one-way ANOVA logistic regression chi-square Pearson correlation coefficient and independent t-test. The findings showed that in athletic students mean internal beliefs were 28.51±3.7 influential persons 20.89±4.9 and chance 14.67±3.7 corresponding to 27.87±4.6 21.64±4.97 and 15.48±4.64 in non-athletics respectively; the differences were however not significant. But the self-esteem scores of athletics (31.2) were significantly higher than that of non-athletics (28.79) (p<0/02).....