HEALTH BEHAVIOR THEORY
An individual's attitude towards his health influences his capacity to maintain an optimum level of health, prevent illness or recover from a disease. Understanding patient's attitude towards his condition is the key to establishing an effective health-related program for health promotion, disease prevention and disease management. Hence, different health behavior theories have emerged. All of these are designed to help the patient and his family to facilitate learning, adjustment and behavior change to improve his quality of life. ( Butts & Rich, 2011)
In addition, health belief models have been developed to determine if the individual is likely to participate in disease-prevention and health-promotion activities. (Kozier & Erb, 2011)
Providing health education is one of the most vital responsibilities of nurses. It can be challenging if the recipients of of our teaching are resistant to behavior change. Aside from establishing mutual goals by the nurse and the patient, different factors have to be taken into consideration before conducting health education classes. Understanding patient’s behavior and attitude towards his condition can be very useful in designing a health program specific to a certain individual.
Attitudes and Beliefs in Compliance with Care. (ANALYZE HOW PATIENT ATTITUDES AND BELIEFS CAN AFFECT COMPLIANCE WITH CARE)
Patient compliance is one of the challenges each health team member faces. A lot of factors can affect patient's attitude towards his health. Lack of knowledge about the disease and its management, lack of social support, lack of adequate finances or health insurance are among others. These factors have negative influence on one's attitude and beliefs towar...
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...veral factors along with demonstrating caring, positive reinforcement if applicable and establishing therapeutic relationship when designing plan of care or even treatment programs would eventually lead to a more satisfying and successful outcome.
References:
Kozier, B. and Erb, G. (2011) Fundamentals of Nursing Concepts, Process and Practice (9th ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.
Butts, J. and Rich, K. (2011) Philosophies and Theories for Advanced Nursing Practice Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning
Mc Ewen, M. and Wills, E. (2014). Theoretical Basis for Nursing (4th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Fishbein, M., & Yzer, M. C. (2003). Using theory to design effective health behavior interventions. Communication Theory, 13(2), 164-183. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/214705041?accountid=37862
One target behavior needing change is to recognize symptoms of diseases and to get regular check-ups. These two were chosen as one behavior change because they both go hand in hand in preventing diseases. For example, by physically examining myself and by determining if something is wrong by what I know I could seriously limit my chances of illness by scheduling an appointment with my doctor. By communicating this information with my doctor we can come up with a diagnosis together by evaluating all the signs and symptoms. Doing both of these behaviors is essential for a healthy disease free body because even though doctors know how to cure and diagnose diseases no one still knows their bodies better then the patient. For example, doctors may diagnose someone with diabetes due to the physical signs they can see, such as ketone body urination; However, because doctors cannot read the patients mind it is possible that the diagnosis is incorrect. One possible scenario could be that the patient drank a lot last night and so they still experiencing splitting headaches and dehydration. Ketone body urination is a sign doctors can see through a urinalysis but the headache is not and so therefore it's considered a symptom because only a patient can determine the headache as being truth. That being said communicating all this information to the doctor could accurately lead them to diagnosing and treating you for alcoholic ketoacidosis instead of diabetes. So therefore if I understand the symptoms of diseases and then schedule an appointment to communicate with my doctor and get examined then I can become as healthy and as well as possible by limiting my chances of physical harm.
Mr. A is burdened with both of these diseases and he may suffer from further complications in the future do to his condition. Public health education campaigns can inform Mr. A that he is experiencing a pre-contemplation behavioural stage in which he is not aware of a need to change his current lifestyle. As previously stated, the case shows that study Mr. A is not currently living a lifestyle that supports the management of his current health conditions. In conjunction with the transtheoretical theory, health campaigns can inform Mr A about his diagnosed conditions and encourage him to change his habits by understanding the 6 behavioural stages. Although the transtheoretical model of can be beneficial in educating Mr. A’s behaviour. Addition of maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory would yield a better outcome for Mr. A by explaining why he has not currently changed his behaviour. Communities can additionally help to support Mr. A by taking on the role of facilitating, participating, fundraising and volunteering in health promotions. With the amalgamation of the knowledge of behavioural theories, exposure to multimodal education campaigns and communities participating in health education interventions, Mr. A can be informed if his current health
Fundamentals of nursing: the art and science of nursing care (7th ed.). Philadelphia: Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
The key concept of the health belief model includes threat perception (perceived threat), behavioral evaluation, self-efficacy and other variables. The threat perception has very great relevance in health-related behaviors. This perception are measured by perceived susceptibility (the beliefs about the likelihood of contacting a disease) and perceived severity (the feeling about the seriousness of contacting an illness and leaving it untreated). The behavioral evaluation is assessed by the levels of perceived benefits (the positive effects to be expected), perceived barriers (potential negative aspects of a health behavior), and cues to action (the strategies to activated one’s readiness). The self-efficacy key concept was not originally included in of the health belief model, and it was just added in 1998 to look at a person’s belief in his/her ability to take action in order to make a health related change. The other variables that are also the key concepts of the model include diverse demography, sociopsychology, education, and structure. These factors are variable from one to another and indirectly influence an individual’s health-related behavior because the factors influence the perception...
DiClemente, R. J., Salazar, L. F., & Crosby, R. A. (2013). Health Behavior Theory for Public Health: Principles, Foundations, and Applications. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning
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Human behavior is a vital component in the sustainment of health and the prevention of illness. For some decades now there has been an increasing attention to the contribution of psychological and social components to improving and changing health. Health specialists have used the help of models of behavior change in order to reduce health risks. Through all these years psychosocial models have been a leading influence in predicting and explaining health behaviors. The most accustomed are the social cognition models. A central principle of social cognition is that people’s social behavior is comprehended by examining their perceptions about their own behaviour
Cognitive change and motivation applies to my life in how I interact with friends and family making their own lifestyle choices. Making sure people I know are aware why they’re making changes and of the benefits that come from changes will definitely help them in the long run. Explaining exactly why attitudes about self-efficacy and normative beliefs, such as in the Theory of Planned Behavior model, provide a clear way to illustrate the importance of cognition in lifestyle change.
Cliff, B. (2012, May/June). Excellence in patient satisfaction within a patient-centered culture. Journal of Healthcare Management, 57, 157-159. http://dx.doi.org/Retrieved from
Health promotion includes providing activities that improve a person’s health. These activities assist patients to “maintain or enhance their present levels of health. Health promotion activities motivate people to act positively to reach more stable levels of health” (Potter & Perry, 2005, p. 97). In order for nurses to assist patients in obtaining healthy lifestyles, they must first assess a patient’s perception of health. The World Health Organization defines health as a “state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (as cited in Potter & Perry, 2005, p. 91). There are many nursing theories that are based on an individual’s perception of health. This paper will explore how health promotion theories can assist nurses in understanding how these perceptions can affect a person’s lifestyle choices.
Potter, P. A., & Perry, A. G. (2009). Fundamentals of nursing (Seventh ed.). St. Louis, Mo.: Mosby Elsevier.
Owing to significant research into the relationship between physical, mental and social conditions, an awareness and understanding of psycho-social aspects in health care is vital (Walker et al, 2007). Those aspects are particularly important in nursing care, where an individual should be considered as the entire person with a need for physical, psychological, social, emotional, intellectual and even spiritual wellbeing (Holland et al, 2008). This essay will address psycho-social theory of health beliefs and attitudes in relation to nursing care. The essay will begin by considering how health beliefs lead to health behaviours. It will then discuss how theoretical models contribute to nursing care and their usefulness and importance in applying the theory to nurse patients.