Health Beliefs and Behaviour

Question 1

Define health behaviour.

Answer 1

Any activity undertaken by an individual believing himself to be healthy, for the purpose of preventing disease or detecting it at an asymptomatic stage

Question 2

Describe the effect of education on health behaviour.

Answer 2

• Education is effective on its own at changing discrete health behaviours e.g. getting a child vaccinated
• However, it is not effective on its own for more complex health behaviours
• It needs to be combined with individualised support, as well as economic, environmental and regulatory support

Question 3

Describe a study that showed the effect of education on healthbehaviour.

Answer 3

Nutbeam study on the effect of smoking education in schools Smoking education showed that it increased knowledge but had no effect on behaviour (smoking)

Question 4

What is the Expectancy-Value model?

Answer 4

Potential for behaviour to occur is to do with:  EXPECTANCY that the behaviour will lead to a particular outcome  VALUE of that outcome

Question 5

Describe the results of an experiment that looked into the effect of fear arousal on health behaviours.

Answer 5

Fear arousal experiment in dental health – participants were exposed to either low, moderate or high fear with regards to dental health Result: the higher the level of fear, the lower the change in behaviour

Question 6

What is outcome efficacy and self-efficacy?

Answer 6

• Outcome efficacy - Individuals expectation that the behaviour will lead to a particular outcome
• Self Efficacy - Belief that one can execute the behaviour required to produce the outcome

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Question 7

What are the four sources of self-efficacy?

Answer 7

• Mastery experience
• Social learning
• Verbal persuasion and encouragement
• Physiological arousal

Question 8

Draw the health beliefs model

Answer 8

Question 9

Draw the theory of planned behaviour model.

Answer 9

Question 10

What are the stages of the transtheoretical model?

Answer 10

Question 11

What are the cues for unhealthy eating?

Answer 11

• Visual (eg. fast food signs, sweets at checkout)
• Auditory (eg. ice cream bell)
• Olfactory (eg. smell of baking bread)
• Location (eg. the couch or car)
• Time (eg. evening)
• Events (eg. end of TV programme )
• Emotional (eg. bored, stressed, sad, happy).