The Trans-Theoretical Model: The Health Belief Model

The Health Belief Model (HBM) was developed in 1950s by social psychologist in the U.S Public Health Services. This theory contains a great deal of components which predicts why people will not take action to prevent, detect, or control illness condition (Glanz et al., 2015). It’s important to be able to understand why people are not participating because one can be able to create more specific campaigns to motivate people to change their behavior. The underlying premise of the HBM is that people are more likely to engage in health behavior if they believe; they are susceptible to a condition, the condition could have potentially serious consequences, a course of action available to them could be of benefit in reducing either their susceptibility …show more content…
Within this model there are ten key processes which best descried how people change over time (Glanz et al., 2015). There are also six major stages in which people also go through in order to try and improve their negative behavior to a positive behavior. The TTM helps public health professionals be able to better understand why people tend to fail at changing their behavior or why people require multiple attempts. The first stage is the precontemplation in which people who are not ready for change or do not intend on changing in the near months tend to stay within this change. Most people stay within this stage because they are lacking the education they need to better understand why quitting a bad behavior is good for them such as overeating. Once people gathered enough information then they are ready to move into the next stage known as contemplation. People within this stage intend on changing their behavior within the next six months (Glanz et al., 2015). In which they are more aware of why changing is important to their health. The preparation stage is next in which people are intended to take action to change within the next month. Most people will have a plan of action such as an exercise plan, buying books, and consulting with a counselor (Glanz et al., 2015). Having social support when attempting to overcome an addiction is important because people need to constantly receive motivation and encouragement to ensure success in behavior change. This motivation and encouragement can drive someone to not give up when things began to become hard. The action stage is the next step in which one has made modification within their lifestyle and behavior. The maintenance is the next stage in which one has made overt modification in their lifestyle and behavior. People within this stage are working on preventing relapse and they are confident that they are able to