ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the importance of physiological feedback on self-efficacy expectancies and subsequent task performance in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). It examines the validity of the self-efficacy construct as well as its function in promoting and maintaining change in patients with COPD. The self-efficacy questionnaire used in this study was constructed and used in a previous study by to demonstrate that specific rather than generalized expectancies mediate behavior changes in patients with COPD. In this study, the rehabilitation patients certainly gained in their ability to walk, but did not show an equally strong increase in self-efficacy expectancies for walking, while the education control patients did poorly on the treadmill exercise and showed little change in efficacy expectancies. Although the value of self-efficacy expectancies in health promotion and maintenance has been demonstrated in numerous studies, the present results provide mixed support for the usefulness of the self-efficacy construct in understanding health behavior change in COPD patients.
