Date of Conferral

2020

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Public Health

Advisor

Manoj Sharma

Abstract

The provision of preventive services, health promotion, and health maintenance has become the cornerstone of primary care practice in the United States and other Western countries to prevent morbidity and premature mortality and to increase the quality and years of a healthy life. Unfortunately, the delivery of these advanced preventive health services (APHS) has been sporadic in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country with poor health indicators. The purpose of this cross-sectional mixed-method study was to apply Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior (TPB) to predict the intention of Congolese primary care physicians (PCPs) in the provision of APHS. Using a self-administered 24-item survey from the Francis’ instrument, primary data were collected from May to November 2019 from a purposive sample of 173 consenting PCPs aged 24–69 years old practicing in Kinshasa, Kongo Central, and Kwilu provinces. Multiple regression was used to analyze the data. The findings revealed that Congolese PCPs’ intention to provide APHS was statistically significantly predicted by their attitudes (β = .183 at p < 0.05), subjective norms (β = .209 at p < 0.01), and perceived behavioral control (β = .198 at p < 0.01). After controlling for age and gender, all 3 predictor variables explained 10.9% variance on the dependent variable intention at the significance level of < 0.01. Despite the low variance, these findings suggested that TPB was a suitable theory model for predicting the intention of Congolese PCPs to provide the APHS. However, a countrywide randomized study is recommended to generalize the results. This study may provide positive social change by standardizing and enhancing the quality of primary care in Congo, by preventing morbidity and premature death, decreasing healthcare costs, and promoting a healthy lifestyle and long productive life of Congolese people.

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