When perfectionists adopt health behaviors: perfectionism and self-efficacy as determinants of health behavior, anxiety and depression

Abstract

Background The study aims to show interrelations between self-efficacy, perfectionism (adaptive and maladaptive), health behavior, and mental health outcomes such as anxiety and depression as an exponent in maintaining optimal health. In the analyses, we focused on one category of health behaviors – preventive practices. Participants and procedure Of the gathered data, 295 complete datasets were analyzed (age: M = 28.16, SD = 9.41; 72.8% participants female). We proposed two path models with personality traits (as exogenous variables) and health behaviors (as endogenous variables) in predicting depression and anxiety. Results Multiple regression analysis revealed that maladaptive perfectionism and generalized self-efficacy significantly predicted health behaviors in general and mental health outcomes whereas adaptive perfectionism and generalized self-efficacy were significant predictors of preventive practices. The path analyses showed that generalized self-efficacy and perfectionism are related directly to mental health outcomes as well as indirectly, through health behaviors. Interestingly, we found a negative indirect effect of an interaction between generalized self-efficacy and preventive practices as well as of an interaction between adaptive perfectionism and preventive practices on mental health outcomes. The model fitted well with the data. Conclusions The findings show that a balanced and more holistic approach to maintaining health is beneficial for people high in self-efficacy in comparison with high focus on disease prevention. Additionally, the results demonstrate that adaptive perfectionists and people high in self-efficacy may also be prone to anxiety and depression (not just maladaptive perfectionists) when their health focus is too narrow.

Keywords

• adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism
• mental health
• health promotion
• path analysis