Application of the Health Belief Model in Promotion of Self-Care in Heart Failure Patients - Essay Example

Article Critique Article Critique The topic of the study by Baghianimoghadam et al. corresponds to its title which is the Application of Health Belief Model in Promotion of Self-Care in Heart Failure Patients. This study is important because it explains that many people who suffer from heart failure do not know about simple every-day actions they should do to keep their health better. HBM can be used as an effective way to organize education programs for people who suffer from different diseases and heart failure in particular.

 Obviously from the title, the study is based on the Health Belief Model (HBM); it is an individual health behavior theory because it considers beliefs and attitudes of each participant on the study. The study applies HBM in the context of the Shahid Rajaee center of Heart Research in Tehran. This center works with heart-failure patients and is a perfect place for research with such a narrow focus. This study measures 9 constructs of HBM that are presented by perceived susceptibility, perceived threat, knowledge, perceived benefits, perceived severity, self-efficacy, perceived barriers, cues to action and self- behavior.

These 9 constructs comprehensively examine the issue and let researcher make useful conclusions from their study.  It took place during the year in 2008. All data were collected before the intervention and two month after its implementation to check its effectiveness in the case group and compare the results with the control group.All data were collected at the Shahid Rajaee center of Heart Research in Tehran. This center is quite big; the researchers could involve enough participants in both case and control groups of the study.

The total number of participants in the study was 180. 90 people were in the case group where the intervention was implemented and 90 people were in the control group where nothing was changed. All participants were randomly selected from all patients with heart who suffered from heart failure and received treatment at the center.The researchers used questionnaire with 69 questions to collect all necessary data. The questions addressed all 9 constructs of HBM researchers wanted to measure and compare in the control and case groups of patients.

  The researchers conducted a pilot testing of the questionnaire to make sure that is was clear and consistent. The pilot tenting included 20 respondents who did not participate either in case group or in control group. The results of the questionnaire were measured with the help of ration scale. Percentages and rations clearly stated the differences between control and case groups.The study found out that 38% of all participants knew nothing about heart failure and 41% of them did not know that the use of salt was not good for their condition; however, there was a significant change in the case group after the intervention.

Self-behavior of patients in the case groups significantly improved after the intervention while it decreased in the control group. The study proved that HBM was effective for educating patients and motivating them to follow long-term activities which were supportive for their health. Researchers concluded that HBM could be used to educate people about control and prevention activities for their health.The strengths of the study were presented by its clear results, but those results were culture-specific.

The same study cannot be applied in the context of Europe and the USA due to different level of heath-awareness of the population. The study focused on senior population; it did not give any account of how HBM can be applied in other age groups. Also, the study considered patients with heart failure only; it was not clear how effective it would be in other cases. HBM theory was successfully applied in this study because it measures individual attitudes and beliefs. However, its main weakness was the lack of analysis of group and community influences on patients in their life choices.

Additional study is needed to examine how situation in particular community impacts each individual in it. In order to improve the article, one can write more about community influences and cultural traditions which impact choices of senior population. Moreover, it would be great to have 3 groups of participants where one group experiences HBM intervention, the second group experiences other approach to health education and the third group is the control group. In this way, it would be easier to compare HBM to other theories and examine the issue better.

Questions:Do you believe that HBM intervention in this study is enough to motivate senior population to take care about their health better?Why do you think that the application of HBM in this case is successful?ReferencesBaghianimoghadam, M. H., Shogafard, G., Sanati, H. R., Baghianimoghadam, B., Mazloomy, S. S., & Askarshahi, M. (2013). Application of the health belief model in promotion of self-care in heart failure patients. Acta Medica Iranica,51(1), 52-58.