Abstract
There is little known about the effectiveness of the SagePlus newsletters at motivating dietary habit changes. The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of the SagePlus newsletter in motivating low-income, middle-aged women who are participating in the SagePlus program to adopt healthier eating habits, specifically to eat more fruits and vegetables. A nonexperimental, descriptive correlational design was used in this study. Phone calls were placed to current SagePlus participants who had been enrolled in the program between six and 12 months. Forty English-speaking participants were contacted and agreed to participate in the telephone survey from a potential list of 190 participants. A modified questionnaire containing 20 multiple choice and open-ended questions was used for data collection. Data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 12. This study found that the participants were motivated to work on and increase their intake of fruits and vegetables. A majority of the participants (70.5%) felt that the newsletter impacted their fruit and vegetable intake. Sixty-five percent of the women who participated in this study increased their fruit intake and 55% increased their daily vegetable intake between the time of enrollment in the program to the time of survey participation. The majority of the participants (72.7%) thought that the newsletter was able to motivate them to work toward working on their dietary goals throughout the month. Healthcare providers can promote healthy dietary change by the use of newsletters. The findings of this study support the use of the SagePlus newsletter as a tool to motivate middle-aged, low-income women to make dietary changes.
Advisor
Diane E. Witt
Committee Member
Kelly Krumwiede
Date of Degree
2011
Language
english
Document Type
Thesis
Degree
Master of Science in Nursing (MSN)
Department
School of Nursing
College
Allied Health and Nursing
Recommended Citation
Hassebroek, N. J. (2011). Evaluation of Health Newsletter Effectiveness on Dietary Habits in Low-Income Middle-Aged Women [Master’s thesis, Minnesota State University, Mankato]. Cornerstone: A Collection of Scholarly and Creative Works for Minnesota State University, Mankato. https://cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/etds/204/
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Public Health and Community Nursing Commons, Public Health Education and Promotion Commons, Women's Health Commons
Rights Statement
