Poor maternal health is one of the major risk factors related to adverse birth outcomes. Women entering pregnancy with poor health status are at higher risk of these outcomes. Prenatal care has been established as the standard prevention paradigm to reduce poor pregnancy outcomes. However, public health professionals are realizing that prenatal care alone is not sufficient to improve perinatal health and birth outcomes, and instead have emphasized the importance of preconception care (PCC). Evidence-based studies reveal that those who received PCC services have better pregnancy outcomes than those who did not. Most published research on preconception are clinical studies, little is known about women’s perception of preconception health and decision-making factor(s) to engage in preconception health practices. Existing research on preconception health behaviors have used retrospective designs, making them difficult to use in assessing the extent of women’s understanding of preconception health behaviors and its relationship to the practice of these behaviors. Thus, an exploratory qualitative study was needed to examine factors associated with preconception health behaviors. The objective of this study was to answer two research questions: (a) What are childbearing age women’s knowledge, beliefs, and perceptions of preconception health/care and how do these factors influence their preconception health behavior? (b) What are the perceived factors (facilitators and hindrances) associated with these women’s intention and decision-making regarding preconception health behaviors? Thirteen women were interviewed about their knowledge and perceptions about PCC and intention toward preconception health behavior practice. The results indicated that women believed PCC is important—using the analogy of preparing their house [body] for conception. Participants associated PCC with physical and nutritional behavior; few acknowledged the importance of mental health. While women believed PCC was important, the majority did not intend to engage in PCC until they became pregnant. The main motivator to engage in PCC was pregnancy. Self-described “laziness” was the most common reported perceived barrier to PCC. Implications of this study are that additional studies with improved designs are needed to clarify relationships among intentions and actual behaviors, and that health educators should focus on educating women about the importance of self-care before conception.

Adolescent social influence is a contributing factor to higher rates of delinquent behaviors such as tobacco use, alcohol abuse, illicit drug use, and sexual activity. The objective of this study is to assess how the distinction between the perception of two social groups, peer and friend, influences behavior based on individual smoking status. Data from the 2006 Adolescent Health Risk Behaviors Survey is used for secondary analysis using questions that address individual perception of delinquent behavior based on peer ("people your age") and friends. An independent samples t-test is used to assess the combined friend and peer perception based on lifetime smoking status (non-smokers and smokers). Next, a paired samples t-test using the significant variable of smokers only is used to measure the difference in perception of the social groups, peer vs. friend. The data indicated that there is a perceived difference between social groups behavior based on smoking status with smokers perceiving their peers to be more delinquent than their friends. There is a need for further research to address true prevalence rates in adolescent social groups and education efforts to focus on the dynamic of social interactions that influence delinquent behaviors.

In resent years the development of the whole globe boosts the exploitation of the region economy and the brand benefit of the merchandise increases by means of the characters. After that the issue that whether the brand benefit of characters derived be a sustaining development and improved becomes the focus of many discussions. During the period that the economy of Taiwan is seriously influenced by SARS in 2003, the behavior of consumers buying the respirators became the most important exchanging activities. This paper investigates whether the respirator possessed characters attributes in the form of questionnaire and discussed whether there are notable differences resulted from the influence factors by means of statistic analysis soft SPSS and statistic method. The intention of this paper is to understand the issues that are formed during the development process of the character brand by means of the consumer behavior of the respirator. The demonstration of this paper focus on the citizens in TaiChung as the object of the discussion by means of the collection review of the literature. This paper intends to forward some proper suggestions for the strategy of the development of the upcoming common consuming merchandise and to promote the quality of management programming.

The purpose of this study is to analyze consumer behavior in bride cake market. The study divides into two parts: one aims consumers who married before 1996 and are above 40-year-old. Through deep interviewing, we can profile consumer behavior in the bribe cake before 1996. The sample of the second study is singles of 18 to 35 years old. According to decision process of EKB model, this research tries to realize consumer purchasing behavior. The results of this research are as follows: 1. The scale of bride cake industry won¡¦t diminish at the present time. 2. Acceptable price is rising up. 3. Western bride cake is consumer¡¦s favorite, then goes to the mixed form. 4. Famous bride cake chain store is the most favorite buying place. 5. Credit is the favorite payment pattern. 6. Valuable information comes from relatives, friends, and store¡¦s sales. 7. In terms of product attributes, consumer emphasizes ¡§good taste¡¨, ¡§good services¡¨, and ¡§fair price¡¨. 8. Geographical variables don¡¦t have significant differences in consumer behavior. 9. Via cluster analysis, samples are divided into three groups, namely ¡§Fashion Seeker¡¨, ¡§Innovator and Adventurer¡¨, and ¡§Realist and economist¡¨. In terms of demographic variables, significant differences exist only in sex and age. There are more female in ¡§Fashion Seeker¡¨ and ¡§Realist and economist¡¨. And the age in these two groups is for the most part range from 18 to 25 years old. The age of ¡§Innovator and Adventurer¡¨ is for the most part range from 26 to 30 years old. ¡§Fashion Seeker¡¨ values ¡§vogue¡¨, ¡§beautiful looking¡¨ and ¡§notable brand¡¨, and concerned ¡§TV advertisement¡¨.

Abstract Since the outbreak of sever acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). The potentially serious impact of SARS on people¡¦s accessibility to medical services should not be overlooking. Many wondered whether the fear of SARS among patient¡¦s alike changed people¡¦s seeking behaviors. Kaohsiung Area remains one of the most severely affected areas of Taiwan. We aimed to identify three problems: 1. Whether the impact of SARS influenced hospital¡¦s ambulatory patient¡¦s seeking behaviors (including overuse, underused, health and preventive behavior, fixed medical care place, and use alternative medicine)? 2. Whether the impact of SARS influenced patient¡¦s selection of hospitals level or clinics? 3. Whether the demographic and health status characteristics affected patient¡¦s seeking behaviors during or after the SARS? Questionnaires were distributed to all willing hospital¡¦s ambulatory patients of Kaohsiung Areas during 2003 Feberry to May. The sampling methodology was stratified, and cluster random sampling. The survey included questions regarding concern about 3-SARS-periods (included pre-SARS, during-SARS, after-SARS) patient¡¦s seeking behaviors (13 items of each period) and selection of hospitals level or clinics (1 item), personal demographic and health status characteristics (12 items). Of the 1834 questionnaires distributed, 1101 (60.03%) were returned. The Cronbach [alpha] for internal consistency reliability was 0.861 for the Questionnaire. We used the repeated measured CATMOD procedure in SAS (Version 8.0, SAS Institute Inc., Gary, NC, 1999-2000) to test the data of 3-SARS-periods patients seeking behaviors. We compared pre-SARS with during-SARS, and compared pre-SARS with after-SARS patient¡¦s seeking behaviors. Comparisons were considered significant at P< or =0.01 and P values were 2-tailed. Combined data for the two comparisons showed that significantly decreased the overuse such as repeated use and go to the medical centers for command cold, decreased the underused such as delay seeking care, increased health and preventive behavior, but fixed health care place deceased, the percentage of use alternative medicine¡¦s didn¡¦t significantly changed. The two comparisons of selection of hospitals level and clinics showed that significantly decreased the percentage of selection of medical center level. Male, single, educational level under high school, family income below 50,000 per month, the chronic disease patient's prescription user, the major illness/injury card user, and high use¡]use above E health care card¡^group patients were statistically significant more percentage of overuse, and less percentage of health behavior, fixed medical care place.

Taiwan is an island, no matter in island or between countries. It is very important for industry in Taiwan to use convenient and quick transportation mode. Especially, as the firm has to deliver cargo in faster transportation mode. The air freight has superiority. It becomes the indispensable transportation mode. Therefore, I want to use this model in the article to explain the realistic economic environment. Downstream firm purchases an input with time restricted, but it will cost a lot for transportation. One of the possible reasons is that the downstream firm wants to force upstream firm to lower its input price. And then I consider under this kind of industry, if upstream firm integrate forward vertically, it may promote the industrial profit.

In the past, medical industry is a highly exclusive field, people would overcome a great amount of restriction and obstacle while seeking for medical advice. However, the financial obstacle was much reduced after the National Health Insurance program began in March of 1995. It is now easier and more convenient for people to seeking for medical assistance. By learning more about the key point of what people think before seeking for medical assistance, hospital can make more effective marketing programs. The purpose of this research is to understand the situation of medical care seeking behavior of the public. The structrued survey study sampled 334 patients by quota sampling. Information collected in the questionnaire includes situation of the medical care seeking behavior and medical services utilization. A multiple regression was also performed to examine the factors that influenced the medical care seeking behavior. Some managerial implications were also proposed according to the results.

It pays much attention on environmental protection in the twenty-first century. However, in Taiwan, the recycling rate of dry batteries is still under 20% which is much less than that in American and EU. This study combined consumer behavior, environmental behavior and the related reference into the research model to find the factors affecting the buying and recycling of dry batteries. So two behaviors were predicted in the model. This study took 192 Kaohsiung citizens as respondents. After filtering out some unsuitable respondents, keep 179 samples to analysis. There are six variables in the buying model, such as price, self-efficacy, environmental concern, response efficacy, environmental responsibility, and habit. By using the method of hierarchical regression, results showed that price and environmental concern can significantly predict the buying intention (£]s > .25, ps < .001). Then put into other variables, habit can also affect the buying intention (£]¡×.28, p < .001). Besides it can increase the power of explanation from 31% to 37%. As for the recycling model, past habit is dependent variable and price, self-efficacy, environmental concern, environmental knowledge and age are independent variables. Results showed that self-efficacy and age can more significantly (£]s >.27, ps <.001) affect past habit than environmental knowledge (£]¡×.14, p < .05). and the R-square is 23%.

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Today, more and more Websites provide digital music with MP3 formats on the Internet. MP3 is a format that can compress the digital files. Without this format the music program would be overlarge, and the small transmission capacity of the World Wide Web would be insufficient to support such a device. With this technological improvement, the consumers will be benefited from the conveniency of MP3, while the records companies would be threatened by the challenge confronted with the music industry. On the one hand, MP3 may reduce the sales of CDs in the market. On the other hand, it may help bring about various advantages for the record companies in terms of decreasing the marketing cost. This thesis aims to discuss the effect of the use of MP3 on CD consumption behavior by surveying the users of the MP3 Websites. The research is based on a well-designed questionnaire on the Internet. Through the promotion in thirteen days, it is received 1532 reply of the questionnaire, and there are 1293 entities considered to be valid samples for the study. The result shows that the correlation between the MP3 use and the CD consumption behavior is positive. That is to say, the users who spend longer time in MP3 Websites will buy more CDs. The more the use frequency of MP3 Websites is, the more the frequency of CD consumption. By comparing those who bought CDs with those who did not during the past twelve months, we find that the former spend longer time in MP3 Websites. To analyze the consumer's recognition about the influence of MP3 use on CD consumption behavior, our study shows that the consumers think the MP3 Websites use will not effect the CD consumption behavior. It further demonstrates an increasing tendency that the more CDs the consumers purchase, the less influence they think of the MP3 use. Therefore, according to the research, the conclusion of this thesis stands to argue that the use of MP3 Websites will not reduce the CD sales, but rather the records companies may take great advantages of it by promoting the CD market through the performance of MP3 in the Internet.