Is it possible to help people to change to more healthy behaviour?
Theories about changes in health behaviour tend to look at:
• Cognition: the way people define and think about what they do and how they change their minds in ways that can lead to changing the ways they act; and
• Context: the cultural, social, physical, emotional and psychological environments that shape people and the factors that can facilitate change. No one theory can sum up all the factors in health behaviour, but theories can be used to focus on particular aspects of behaviour and to choose the most appropriate programmes for cancer control.
Behaviour: what people do
‘Behaviour’ is the general term covering all the physical acts performed by individuals. Examples of physical acts include walking, interacting with others, writing, reading and preparing to learn. Behaviour includes seeking or not seeking advice for health care and following or not following a prescribed medical regimen. It includes relationships with tobacco, food, alcohol and so on.
Cognition: what and how people think
‘Cognition’ is the term given to all the mental processes of an individual and includes not only aspects of thinking, such as knowledge, attitudes, motives, attributions and beliefs, but also perceptions, personal values, perceived cultural truths and memory. Cognition can be influenced by intelligence and past experience. Examples are religious convictions, wanting to be a good parent, distrusting modern medicine, knowing that smoking is dangerous for others but believing that it is not dangerous for one’s own health, and so on.
Context: the setting of behaviour and cognition
‘Context’ is a general term that is more inclusive than the general perception of the environment. It includes not only the social, cultural and physical environment but also interpersonal influences on behaviour and the emotional and psychological contexts of each act and cognition. These include laws, norms (socially defined and accepted cognition and behaviour) and social dynamics. Much healthy behaviour is not practised simply because, for instance, it is not defined as necessary by the community (e.g. skin protection), the appropriate choice is not available (e.g. healthy eating at work or school), other forces push society towards an unhealthy alternative
(E.g. the tobacco industry) or an unhealthy behaviour is r...
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...n .Nevertheless, focusing on only one aspect of health behaviour is no longer sufficient or viable, as shown by the evolution of health promotion from an individual- toad society-based approach. In conclusion, theories must look at the ways individuals perceive and determine action, or at the way the context shapes the behavioural choices of individuals. To cover a maximum number of possibilities, programmes should include multiple strategies, integrating the goals of changing the context and changing cognition.
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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.
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