James F. Sallis, Ph.D.Distinguished Professor, Family Medicine and Public Health
University of California, San Diego

Self-Efficacy for Diet and Exercise

Self-efficacy is confidence in the ability to do specific behaviors in specific situations. These measures were developed to assess self-efficacy of adults for diet (fat, salt) and exercise. Items were developed through formative research. These scales have been adapted for "physical activity" (see GRAD survey) and very short versions (see San Diego Health and Exercise Project and NQLS).

Main Citations:

Sallis, J.F., Pinski, R.B., Grossman, R.M., Patterson,T.L., and Nader, P.R. (1988). The development of self-efficacy scales for health-related diet and exercise behaviors. Health Education Research, 3, 283-292.

Decker, J.W., and Dennis, K.E. (2013) The Eating Habits Confidence Survey: Reliability and Validity in Overweight and Obese Postmenopausal Women. Journal of Nursing Measurement, 21, Number 1, 110-119(10). Read Paper

Self-Efficacy for Diet Behaviors: Survey and Scoring

These are slightly shortened surveys that have been widely used, plus scoring instructions.

Please direct questions to Dr. Si Jian Li, hssjli@inet.polyu.edu.hk

Please direct questions to Cha-Nam Shin, Cha-Nam.Shin@asu.edu.

Self-Efficacy Survey for Diet Behaviors, Chinese Translation

Self-Efficacy Survey for Exercise Behaviors, Chinese Translation