The Health Belief Model And The Theory Of Planned Behaviour

1708 Words7 Pages
When considering health psychology it is important to recognise the various models it is made up of. The basis of this essay will be to take a look at the health belief model and the theory of planned behaviour, considering their historical origins, the positives and negatives of applying these approaches and examples of when they have been used. After some analysis it may offer some insight into possible improvements that could be implemented from further research. Also included will be an overview of how the models compare to each other and critical evaluation of research from this field.
Conner and Norman, 1995 describe the health belief model as ‘the oldest and most widely used model in health psychology’. It originated in the 50’s and was developed further by Hochbaum, Rosenstock and Kegals throughout the 1980’s for health education programmes and to predict different health behaviours and responses to treatments. The four terms that are the basis for the HBM are perceived susceptibility, perceived barriers, perceived severity and perceived benefits. The behaviour of the individual depends on their belief that they are susceptible to a health problem, how serious they deem it to be, whether they think that treatment will benefit them and if there are barriers that may get in the way.

Although there has been much support for the HBM, there has been two large scale reviews carried out on studies using the HBM and Abraham and Sheeran (2005) reported that although they
Get Access