A study on the mediating role of psychological resilience in the relationship between exercise motivation and health perception

Exercise motivation is associated with how individuals perceive their health, and psychological resilience may help explain this relationship. This study aims to determine the mediating role of psychological resilience in the relationship between exercise motivation and health perception. The cross-sectional research was conducted in Vocational Health Service Schools at Sakarya University between February 2025, and August 2025. Data were collected from students studying in this province using online and face-to-face survey method. Data was collected from 650 students as part of the study. The indirect effect's lower and upper values [CI = 0.0029; 0.0178] do not include zero and are therefore significant, as a result of the mediation analysis performed using the bootstrapping method. Thus, psychological resilience plays a mediating role in the effect of attitudes toward exercise motivation on health perception (β = 0.009). This indicates that psychological resilience increases the positive effect of attitudes toward exercise motivation on health perception (β = 0.175, p < 0.05). It was determined that the relationship between exercise motivation and psychological resilience and between psychological resilience and health perception was positive and significant. In addition, it was determined that psychological resilience mediated the effect of attitudes towards exercise motivation on health perception. In conclusion, this study showed that health perception and psychological resilience are among the determinants of exercise motivation.