Health Promotion Model Analysis - Coursework Example

Running head: APPLYING THEORY Applying Theory of Total Number of Words 824 Introduction The health promotion model(HPM) has been designed to promote the importance of health protection. In the process of promoting the essence of protecting the health of each individual, health care professionals are more capable of increasing the patients’ level of wellbeing. In general, HPM is considered as a multi-dimensional model since it focuses not only on the patients’ individual characteristics and/or experiences but also on the behaviour-specific cognitions and affect and behavioural outcomes. (Current Nursing, 2009) To enable the readers to have a better understanding of the subject matter, the paper will be divided into two major parts. The first part will explain Beattie’s model of health promotion including its relevance to the contemporary public health. Eventually, the strengths and weaknesses of the model will be identified and thoroughly discussed. Upon identifying the different behaviour change models, the second part of the paper will discuss about the strengths and weaknesses of each framework. Part I – Beattie’s Model of Health Promotion Beattie’s model of health promotion is one of the most commonly used frameworks that enables the health care professionals to thoroughly examine the health determinants aside from developing a list of highly recommended responsive action to improve the health and well-being of the patients. The Beattie’s model of health promotion is composed of four paradigms known as: (1) health persuasion; (2) personal counselling; (3) community development; and (4) legislative action. (Beattie, 1991) These four paradigms are basically used in capturing the entire picture which is necessary in allowing the health care professionals to develop effective action plan. Basically, the health persuasion technique includes the bio-medical approach upon analyzing the main cause of a particular behaviour. Under the top-down or authoritative, the relationship between the patients’ diseases, lifestyle, risk factors, the suggested way of controlling lifestyle, and the risks of not being able to follow the health care professionals’ health advice are being identified (Piper, 2007). On the other hand, the bottom-up model is used in as a patient-centered approach of health promotion. It simply means that the patients are given the opportunity to have power or control over their health care treatment or medication (Beattie, 1991). Strengths and Weaknesses of Beattie’s Model of Health Promotion Strengths of Beattie’s Model of Health Promotion Regardless of whether the health promotion plan is physician- or patient-centred, the application of the Beattie’s model of health promotion enables the health care professionals to analyze the health promotion practices and think deeply about the concept of health promotion which is applicable in different environmental settings. Likewise, the Beattie’s legislative action for health including the community development for health allows the health care professionals to be able to conceptualize the health promotional activity within the micro- and macro level (Piper, 2007). For instance: The model is applicable in both the departmental level and/or within the entire hospital care practice. In order to increase the effectiveness of health promotion, the Department of Health (2001) explained that there is a higher success rate when health promotional activities are conducted in such a way that the community is being involved in the health promotion plan. Encouraging the community to participate in the health promotion plan will enable the health care professionals to reach out and protect the health of more people. One of the strengths of Beattie’s model of health promotion is that the framework strengthens the health promotion within the community. This can result to establishing a long-term health promotion, prevention, protection, and education to the local people. In other words, this particular health promotion model does not only encourage a short-term health benefit program but a long-term one. Weaknesses of Beattie’s Model of Health Promotion Although Beattie’s model of health promotion is useful in promoting the health and wellness of the people, the said framework does not specifically discuss the role of the health care professionals when using the model. Unless the health care professionals acknowledge the value and worth of the Beattie’s model of health promotion, the framework may remain useless to some people. Another weakness of Beattie’s model of health promotion is that the framework fails or is limited in addressing all of the global concerns when it comes to the practice, structure and political factors behind the health promotion. (Whitelaw, McKeown, & Williams, 1997) Part II – Behaviour Change Models In general, behaviour change models enable the health care professionals to determine the following: (1) the patients’ attitude and their beliefs about the consequences of a particular disease and treatment; (2) the expectations of other people; and (3) the patients’ perceived control and belief in their ability to make relevant changes about their health condition. (Health Development Agency, 2001) Tones (2000) explained that health promotional activities should include the social empowerment and enabling activities regardless of gender and race differences. In general, behaviour plays a crucial role in the health condition of each individual. For instance: People who are into smoking, have poor eating habits, and live a sedentary life are more at risks of developing health diseases. (NICE, 2007, p. 6) Given that each individual have their own behaviour, beliefs, and attitude when it comes to health practices, Beattie’s model of health promotion works better when combined with behaviour change models. The different behaviour change models include: (1) health belief model (HBM); (2) theories of reasoned action (TRA); (3) theory of planned behaviour (TPB); and (4) the transtheoretical (TTM). (NICE, 2007, p. 37) By focusing on the individual attitudes and beliefs, the HBM is a psychological model which is used in explaining and predicting health-related behaviors. For instance: HBM is used on identifying: (1) preventive health behaviors like proper diet and regular exercise or health risks related to smoking; (2) sick role behavior which includes the acceptance of recommended medical treatment; and (3) use of clinical services such as visiting the physicians for health care reasons. (Conner & Norman, 1996) TRA is “a more generalized theory of relation of beliefs to behaviors” (Garson, 2007). TRA focuses on identiying each individual norms which is often composed of beliefs, values and motivational factors. Since one’s individual belief could eventually lead to behavioral actions, identifying these factors could enable the health care professionals to develop health care plans to counteract negative health behaviors. TPB considers that behavior of each individual is caused by the following: (1) behavioral beliefs which leads to attitude towards behavior; (2) normative beliefs such as subjective norms; and (3) control beliefs which leads to perceived behavioral control. (Ajzen, 2006) By linking the behavioral outcomes with each individual’s behavioral beliefs, the attitude towards a behavior is considered as the degree wherein the behavioral act can either be negatively or positively valued. Subjective norm is actually the perceived social pressure of whether or not a person will engage in a particular behavior whereas the perceived behavioral control is referring to each individual’s perception of their abilityto act a particular behavior. TTM is composed of six phases known as: (1) precontemplation; (2) contemplation; (3) preparation; (4) action; (5) maintenance; and (6) termination. (Prochaska, Norcross, & DiClemente, 1994) Unlike the other behavior models, TTM is “an integrative model of behavior change” (Velicer et al., 1998). This model describes how a person can modify or change a negative behavior into a positive one. Strengths and Weaknesses of Each Behaviour Change Models HBM enables the health care professionals to gather useful information prior to making final health decisions. (Hochbaum, 1970, p. 70) Since HBM is a staged theory, each step enables the health care professionals to have a better understanding why a patient behaves in certain ways. The problem with HBM is that gathering useful information about the patients’ behaviour is not enough to make positive changes in the patients’ behaviour. TRA intentionally identifies the importance of attitudes and intentions in changing the patients’ negative behaviour. (Tedesco et al., 1992) Since this model is intentional based, there is a higher chance for health care professionals to be able to control the behavioural outcomes in each patient. The problem with this model is that intentions could only predict behaviour in case the patient is stable and consistent. (Tedesco et al.) In case the patient shows unpredictable behaviour, this model may not be useful in terms of controlling the patients’ behaviour. Similar to TRA, the use of TPB is more effective when studying behaviours that are more rational in nature such that the intention-behaviour link is strong (Murray-Johnson et al., 2001). Since TPB was intentionally developed to address the limitations of TRA, TPB has more perceived behavioural control variance when predicting health behaviours as compared with the TRA (Madden et al., 1992). Similar to other models, TPB is not effective when determining non-voluntary factors which could significantly affect the behavioural pattern of each individual (Gebhardt & Maes, 2001). Likewise, it gives little attention regarding the main causes of each individual’s beliefs and its impact over a person’s behaviour (Weinstein, 1988). The strength of the TTM is that the model enables the health care professionals to design a plan for intentional behavioural changes. Basically, this model includes not only “a series of independent variables but also the processes of change which is composed of ten cognitive and behaviour activities aside from a series of outcome measures” (Velicer et al., 1998). When applied as a tool in the reproductive health counselling among the adolescent, the study of Hacker et al. (2005) concluded that this model is effective and very promising when promoting integrated pregnancy and disease prevention for family planning counselling. Since the leadership skills of the person implementing the model matters in terms of managing resistance-to-change and increasing the audiences’ participation (Prochaska, Prochaska, & Levesque, 2001), TTM is not always effective when being applied to an organizational change. Conclusion Beattie’s model of health promotion is widely used since the framework is applicable not only to physician-centred but also on patient-centred health teachings. To increase the effectiveness of this model, this particular health promotion framework should be used together with other behaviour models. Given that behaviour change is a continuous ongoing process, it is concluded that there is no single model that can account for all the complexities behind behavioural change. For this reason, health care professionals are advised to develop a well-planned intervention program based on their target audiences or patients. For instance: When conducting a health promotional plan for a low-income community, the health care teachings should be in accordance to not only to the financial status of the community members but also their educational attainment. Likewise, health care professionals should also consider the social and lifestyle behaviour of its target audiences. *** End *** References Ajzen, I. (2006). Retrieved April 10, 2009, from TPB Diagram: http://www.people.umass.edu/aizen/tpb.diag.html Beattie, A. (1991). Retrieved April 10, 2009, from Knowledge and control in health promotion: a test case for social policy and theory. In Daly G. 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