Relationship between Breakfast Consumption and Self-Efficacy, outcome Expectations, Evaluation and Knowledge in Elementary Students

Background: The breakfast is the most important meal of the day that its regular consumption is effective on individuals' physical, psychological and social health. Given the high prevalence of irregular consumption of breakfast among students, this study aimed to investigate breakfast consumption behavior and self-efficacy, outcome expectations, evaluation and knowledge in elementary students. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out on 360 (52.3%) female primary school students and 154 (47.7%) male students of Isfahan- Iran using cluster-random sampling. The data were collected in a self-reporting form by researcher made questionnaire. The data were analyzed using SPSS 18.0 with independent t-test, ANOVA, Pearson correlation coefficient, and multiple regression. Results: The mean breakfast consumption (in a week) score of 2.4 with a standard deviation of 1.7. 10.5% of students were eating breakfast daily. There was a significant relationship between breakfast consumption and self-efficacy, outcome expectation and outcome evaluation (P<0.001). There was an inverse relationship between students' age, economic situation and breakfast consumption (P=0.01 and r= -0.143). Multiple regression analysis showed there was a significant relationship between selfefficacy (Beta [standardized regression coefficients] =0.145), type of school (Beta =0.631), and student age (Beta =0.402) and having breakfast and it predicted 24.3% of breakfast consumption variance. Conclusion: Results showed that eating breakfast is not desirable in students. Self-efficacy is a predictor of breakfast consumption. Therefore, some interventions such as regular psychological counseling to increase the self-efficacy of students and educational programs to increase the knowledge of students are necessary to increase breakfast consumption rate.