Using The Health Belief Model

The Health Belief Model is the model I have selected to guide me through the internship. In the Health Belief Model there is the assumption that people will take responsibility and action if they believe that their health issues is possible to address, they have a positive outlook on the proposed plan of action, and if the person believes they are able to take the proposed action. The levels of the Health Belief Model go step by step with how people process their logic of the health issue they are faced with. Taking obesity in children. If the child or parent takes an assessment of how likely they are to get the perceived issue of obesity is perceived susceptibility.

The Commitment to Health (CTH) theory was established as a supplement to the TTM and helps to identify, “how early health-behavior activities become lifelong behavior change” (Kelly, 2008, p.148). Kelly (2008) describes CTH as a middle-range theory in her article. Middle-range theories are “theories that have more limited scope, less abstraction, address specific phenomena or concepts and reflect practice” (Potter and Perry, 2005, p. 63). Kelly (2008) believes that CTH can be used to help create evidence-based health promotion plans for patients in the action stage of behavior change.

The Health Belief Model is commonly used for health promotion and health education. Its’ underlying concept is that health behavior is explained by perception of the disease and the strategies available to lower its occurrence. There are four perceptions of the HBM, which are perceived seriousness, perceived benefit, perceived susceptibility and perceived barriers. In addition to that, more constructs are added to health belief model that includes motivating factor, cues to action and self-efficacy. Each of these constructs in combination or individually, could be used to determine health behavior. The HBM also provides guidelines for the program development allowing planners to address reasons for non-compliance with recommended health action. The health belief model is a process used to promote healthy behavior among individuals who may be at risk of developing adverse health outcomes. A person must gauge their perceptions of severity and susceptibility of developing a disease. Then it is essential to feel vulnerable by these perceptions. Environmental factors can play a role as well as cues to action such as media, and close friends. In order to determine that taking action will be meaningful, the benefits to change must be weighed, against the barriers to change behavior (Green & Murphy, 2014).

In this part of my assignment I will describe 2 different theories of behaviour change in relation to health.

The Health Belief Model (HBM) of health behaviour change was originally developed in the 1950s in order to understand and explain why vaccination and screening programs being implemented at the time were not meeting with success (Edberg 2007). It was later extended to account for preventive health actions and illness behaviours (Roden 2004). Succinctly, it suggests that behaviour change is influenced by an individuals’ assessment of the benefits and achievability of the change versus the cost of it (Naidoo and Wills 2000).

Using the health belief model, how can nurses encourage patients to make immediate and permanent behavior changes; particularly as they relate to lifestyle choices?

After conducting my project, I felt as if applying the Health Belief Model would be a great representation to showing what I went through over the weeks of doing my running. The Health Belief Model puts stress on four different components that can either influence or discourage our outlooks on whether making a health change will be an actual threat. These four factors are perceived susceptibility, severity of threat, benefits and barriers, and cues

The healthy belief method was demonstrated with this study. The study demonstrated that the impact of health beliefs on behavior showed a direct relationship between health

Noreen and Janevic (2013) believe that the success of patients’ preventive and curative interventions depends on the individual’s willingness to take responsibility for and maintain the necessary behaviors. Sadly, studies have shown that there is poor adherence to recommended changes in lifestyle and behaviors including attending scheduled appointments for treatments (which are missed 35% of the time) and compliance prescribed medication. Due to the evidence of subpar participation in preventive care such as screening and immunization efforts, behavioral scientist have dedicated more research to studying and identifying what determines individual’s health behaviors. This is how individual theories of health behavioral change were developed.

The change models are change agents that could explain the ways of implementing a change process. These models explain the reason for the change, what to expect during the process and the way a change occurs. Thus, these models help one understand the various aspects of the change process (Agriculture & Life Sciences: Texas A & M University, n.d.). The transtheoretical model of health behavior change could explain my evidence-based practice (EBP) project implementation plan.

Boskey (2014) concludes that a person’s willingness to change their health behaviors includes perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived barriers, and cues to action and self-efficacy. For example, Carpenter (2010) report the Health Belief Model stipulates that a change may occur if individuals see an adverse health outcome to be severe and perceive them to be vulnerable to it. Other perceptions include benefits of behaviors that reduce the likelihood of that outcome to be high, and the barriers to adopting those behaviors low (Carter, 2010). Furthermore, the HBM addresses the relationship between a person’s beliefs and behaviors. It provides a way of understanding and predicting how clients will behave about their health and how they will comply with healthcare therapies (Boskey, 2014).

Both the health belief model (HBM) and theories of reasoned action/planned behavior (TRA/TPB) are two model that has their root from psychology. Both models rely on social cognition as a mechanism to change individuals’ behaviors. Opponent criticizes the models for being unable to target social influence outside of an individual and overlook difference between target audiences.

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.

The Health Belief Model (HBM) is one of the first theories of health behavior. It was developed in the 1950s by social psychologists in the U.S. Public Health Services to better understand the widespread failure of tuberculosis screening programs. Today it continues to be one of the most widely used theories. Research studies use it to explain and predict health behaviors seen in individuals. There is a broad range of health behaviors and subject populations that it is applied in. The concepts in the model involve perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits, perceived barriers, cues to action, and self-efficacy. Focusing on the attitudes and beliefs of individuals being studied create an understanding of their

Health belief model was one of the first and most widely recognized theories of health behavior. (Butts & Rich, 2011). This theory was formulated in an attempt to predict health behaviors by focusing on the attitude and beliefs of individuals. It is aimed to determine the likelihood of an individual to participate in health-promotion and disease prevention programs. (Kozier & Erb, 2011). This theory postulated that if a patient is well- motivated, there is a possibility that he will participate in these activities. Motivation can be derived by the individual's perceptions towards his condition. According to Becker (1974), individual perceptions include patient's perceived susceptibility, perceived seriousness of the disease and perceived threat.