Testicular self-examination: a test of the health belief model and the theory of planned behaviour

The aim of this study was to test the utility and efficiency of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) and the health belief model (HBM) in predicting testicular self-examination (TSE) behaviour. A questionnaire was administered to an opportunistic sample of 195 undergraduates aged 18-39 years. Structural equation modelling indicated that, on the basis of all the fit indices, the TPB model was the better model, however, the quality of the models was very similar. The TPB explained 50% of the variance in intention and 22% in behaviour while the HBM (with self-efficacy) accounted for 56 and 21%, respectively. Self-efficacy was the most important predictor of TSE behavioural intention across both models. These findings contribute to the growing literature on the testing of multiple models in the health psychology domain.