Development of the General Health Motivation Scale.

Six studies were undertaken to develop a unidimensional, example-anchored rating scale measuring general health motivation (GHM), an important key to understanding health promotion behaviors. GHM differs conceptually from motivation pertaining to disease prevention, which is expressed as avoiding specific precursors to disease and death. Health promotion is not disease-specific (Pender, 1984) but is connected with positive social consequences (Becker, Maiman, Kirscht, Haefner, & Drachman, 1977). For our purposes, GHM is an individual's expressed intent to perform those behaviors that positively contribute to health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]