| dc.description.abstract | An individual’s family health history (FHH) plays a significant role in early disease detection and prevention. It is important for college students to know their FHH and establish a life-long healthy lifestyle. Obtaining accurate and comprehensive FHH information from family members is the first step to apply FHH in health promotion. The purpose of this dissertation is to assess college students’ behavior of FHH collection and associated psychological factors, as well as examine college students’ FHH educational needs. Beginning with a systematic literature review, the first manuscript summarized and evaluated existing FHH interventions for the general public. The second manuscript is a needs assessment that investigated college students’ interests, preferred information, and desired delivery methods for FHH education. The third manuscript presents a survey study examining college students’ behavior of FHH collection from family members and associated factors using an integrated theoretical framework. There were several key findings in this dissertation. First, the systematic literature review identified 35 articles evaluating 28 different FHH interventions.
These studies included diverse settings, a wide range of chronic diseases, and different ethnic groups. Although articles in this review assessed various behaviors and/or health-related cognitive outcomes associated with FHH interventions, significant positive changes were only reported in certain aspects. Future research should address more complicated health behaviors, especially communication with healthcare providers, in their FHH interventions. This review also highlighted the need to improve the methodological quality of this body of literature. Second, more than half of college students were not interested in FHH education mainly because of low prioritization. The most desired topics regarding FHH education included interpretation of FHH information, FHH applications in disease prevention, and FHH collection methods. Computer-based learning was the most preferred education method among college students. Third, over half of the college students had never or seldom obtained their own FHH from family members. Participants’ FHH collection behavior was associated with various psychological and demographic factors in the proposed theoretical framework. This dissertation contributes to the current literature by critically evaluating existing FHH interventions, assessing college students’ behavior in FHH collection, and providing future directions for FHH interventions for college students. | en |
