Construction of Exercise Behavior Model in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis

Despite the awareness that regular exercise has a positive impact on maintaining health, patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) engage in markedly less exercise than do the general population. Weaimed to construct and test a structural equation model of exercise behavior in patients with RA based on self-determination theory and self-efficacy theory.

Participants were 214 outpatients with RA at Chonnam National University Hospital located in the Gwangju City, South Korea from Mar to Apr 2018. A structured self-report questionnaire was used to assess autonomy support, autonomy, competence, relatedness, autonomous motivation, self-efficacy, and exercise behavior. Collected data were analyzed using SPSS 22.0 and AMOS 22.0 program.

The structural model showed a good fitness with the data (χ2= 727.27, df = 392, P<0.001, TLI = 0.92, CFI = 0.93, RMSEA = 0.07, SRMR = 0.07). Autonomous motivation and self-efficacy had a significant effect on exercise behavior in patients with RA. This model explained 21.2% of the variance of exercise behavior in patients with RA.

Self-efficiency and autonomous motivation should be promoted in order to strengthen the exercise behavior of patients with RA.