Fathers, sons, and health : relationships between fathers' and sons' health habits and perspectives

In this study Dorethea Orem's Self-Care Framework was used to explore the relationships between how a father takes care of his own health (self-care agency) and the health of his son (dependent-care agency), and how his adolescent son takes care of his health. This descriptive study focused on the relationship between the health habits and attitudes of fathers and the health habits and attitudes of their adolescent sons. A convenience sample of adolescent males and their male parents was used. The adolescent males were in grades 10 and 11, from four public high schools in one county in a southeastern state. The male parent was defined as the adult male member in the household who acted as male parent. The following instruments were used; Denyes Self–Care Agency Instrument (DSCAI-90), Moore and GafiSiey's Dependent-Care Agent Questionnaire, and Baldwin and Davis' Health Education Questionnaire IV (HEQ). A nonexperimental descriptive correlational design was used. Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient (Pearson r) was used to explore correlations between male adolescents' and male parents' results on these instruments. The subject population consisted of male parents (n=38), male adolescents (n=44) and male parent/male adolescent pairs (n=33). Responses did not meet the numbers required for an adequate sample size and demographics did not reflect a representative sample of the county population for these two groups. However, 80% of the male adolescents that responded had a male parent that also responded. Relationships were found to exist between male parents' dependent-care agency and self-care agency, and male parents' beliefs and knowledge on health topics. No relationship was found between male parents' dependent-care agency or self-care agency and male adolescents' self-care agency. The researcher concluded that more research is needed to discover possible relationships in these concepts, with these, and other populations.