The Health Belief Model And The Health Belief Model

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.

The Health Belief Model (HBM) was developed by a group of social psychologists at the U.S. Public Health Service in the 1950s in an attempt to understand “the widespread failure of people to participate in programs to prevent and detect disease.” It was later applied to patient responses to symptoms and to compliance with prescribed medical regimens (Champion, Stretcher, & Janz, 2002, p. 46).

The Health Belief Model was developed in 1966 by Irwin Rosenstock to identify the factors associated with patient non-compliance to health care recommendations. The original model had four constructs: perceived susceptibility (the patient may not follow the pre-procedure instructions for a colonoscopy if they do not believe they are at risk for getting colorectal cancer), perceived severity (patients may be non-compliant if they do not understand the seriousness of colorectal cancer), perceived barriers (the patient may see consuming the pre-colonoscopy prep as an inconvenience, stopping them from eating and leaving the house), and perceived cost of the intervention (this does not apply to the veterans, they are not paying for the procedure or medication used for it) (Raingruber,

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.

In few words, studying the aspects of the health belief model, patients can accept or reject the designed and appropriate interventions. For example, if a patient is unaware of his or her risk factors for one or more diseases, direct teaching toward informing the patient about personal risk factors. If the patient is aware of the risk, but feels that the behavior change is overwhelming or unachievable, efforts on helping the patient have the ability to overcome the perceived barriers.

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

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).

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).

Choosing a theory which is useful for a certain situation begins with an assessment and a certain process, which generates assumptions about a behaviors, health problems, target populations, or the environment. For instance, the theory of planed behavior, measures the relationships between, a person’s beliefs, attitudes, intentions, behavior, and perceived control over that behavior (National Cancer Institute, 2005). I find this theory very useful while identifying why some people continue to expose their skin to harmful UV radiation, and place themselves at risk for skin cancer.

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.

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).

Theory simply tells the essential truth about the real world through evidence obtained by scientific method. Barker defines theory as a group of related hypotheses, concepts, and constructs, based on facts and observations all in which attempt to explain a phenomenon. Every theory is unique, but can reflect some of the same general ideas. Though every theory has a different focus, they can all be intertwined in order to enhance therapeutic alliance. In order to choose the best theoretical orientation for ourselves and how they will benefit our practice, we first have to understand the meaning of theoretical orientation.

A theory is an explanation of why or how things are related to each other (Bohm & Vogel, 2011). Additionally, a theory is defined as a plausible or scientifically acceptable principle, or a body of principles, offered to explain phenomena (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 2017). Furthermore, crime theories examine and attempt to identify relationships among humans, criminal behavior, and specific factors such as biological factors, psychological factors, sociological factors, and economic factors (Bohm & Vogel, 2011). Since we have defined a theory, let us further discuss how theories are created beginning with the components of a theory.

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