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Health Education Research Advance Access originally published online on October 13, 2006
Health Education Research 2007 22(4):599-608; doi:10.1093/her/cyl121
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Comparing stage of change and behavioral intention to understand fruit intake

Emely de Vet1,2,*, Jascha de Nooijer2, Nanne K. de Vries2 and Johannes Brug1

1 Department of Public Health, Erasmus MC University Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
2 Department of Health Education and Promotion, Universiteit Maastricht, Maastricht, The Netherlands

* Correspondence to: E. de Vet, Institute of Health Sciences, Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences, VU University, De Boelelaan 1085, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands. E-mail: emely.de.vet{at}falw.vu.nl

We explored if the pre-action Transtheoretical stages of change are indeed discrete stages for fruit intakes. In a longitudinal design, a cohort of 735 adults completed electronic questionnaires assessing fruit intake, stages of change and intention to increase fruit intake at baseline and 35 and 67 days follow-up. A dichotomization of a continuous intention measure (‘pseudostages’) was compared with precontemplation and contemplation stages. The results showed (i) that pseudostages and stages of change were strongly associated; (ii) that for most respondents, stability and transitions in stages of change resembled transitions in pseudostage, while test–retest reliabilities for both measures were similar and (iii) that pseudostages and the continuous intention measure were stronger predictors of fruit intake than stage of change. We conclude that pre-action stages of change for fruit are not different from a mere categorization of a continuous intention measure.

Received on October 17, 2005; accepted on August 24, 2006


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