Health Beliefs and Behaviour Flashcards
Define health behaviour.
Any activity undertaken by an individual believing himself to be healthy, for the purpose of preventing disease or detecting it at an asymptomatic stage
Give some examples of “healthy behaviour”
Eating breakfast Not smoking Moderate alcohol intake 7-8 hours of sleep Regular exercise
Describe the effect of education on health behaviour.
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
Describe a study that showed the effect of education on health behaviour.
Nutbeam study on the effect of smoking education in schools
Smoking education showed that it increased knowledge but had no effect on behaviour (smoking)
What is the Expectancy-Value model?
Potential for behaviour to occur is to do with:
- EXPECTANCY that the behaviour will lead to a particular outcome
- VALUE of that outcome
Describe the results of an experiment that looked into the effect of fear arousal on health behaviours.
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
What is self-efficacy?
Belief that one can execute the behaviour required to produce the outcome
What are the four sources of self-efficacy?
Mastery experience
Social learning
Verbal persuasion and encouragement
Physiological arousal
Describe the health beliefs model
For behaviour change to occur there has to be a threat - Cues to action are different for different people
○ Example = a friend’s family member dies of a heart attack -> you then go get your heart checked and being more healthy towards your heart (e.g. exercising more, eating less red meat)
Susceptibility and seriousness can either increase likelihood of behaviour change or reduce it
Give an example of the health beliefs model
Example: decision to eat healthy and exercise regularly to not have a heart attack:
Susceptibility: heart attacks are very common and many people die of it
Seriousness: I could die of a heart attack
Benefits: I would avoid/delay having a heart attack and live longer
Costs/Barriers: I would have to be consistently eating healthy and exercising regularly, high self-discipline needed
Cues: Had high blood pressure at the doctor’s check-up
Describe the theory of planned behaviour model.
It is a model used to predict intention. And intention is a key factor in behaviour change. Factors are:
Expectancy-value = do we expect the outcome from this behaviour and is it high value? => attitude towards the behaviour
internal (e.g. self-efficacy) and external (i.e. health beliefs model) factors => Perceived behavioural control
Beliefs about importance and other people’s attitude towards the behaviour (i.e. how desirable or normal/expected is it) => subjective norm
=> all lead to a change in intention to change behaviour
What are the stages of the trans-theoretical model?
Precontemplation Contemplation Preparation Action Maintenance Relapse NOTE: you can enter and leave at any stage
