Jointly published by Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest Scientometrics, Vol. 73, No. 3 (2007) 289–301 and Springer, Dordrecht DOI: 10.1007/s11192-007-1692-1 Received February 27, 2007 Address for correspondence: ANA ANDRÉS University of Barcelona, Department of Methodology for the Behavioural Sciences Passeig Vall d’Hebron, 171, 08035 Barcelona, Spain E-mail: anaandres@ub.edu 0138–9130/US $ 20.00 Copyright © 2007 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest All rights reserved The Transtheoretical Model and obesity: A bibliometric study ANA ANDRÉS,a JUANA GÓMEZ,a CARMINA SALDAÑAb a Department of Methodology for the Behavioural Sciences, University of Barcelona, Barcelona (Spain) b Department of Personality, Assessment and Psychological Treatment, University of Barcelona, Barcelona (Spain) The Transtheoretical Model of behaviour change is currently one of the most promising models in terms of understanding and promoting behaviour change related to the acquisition of healthy living habits. By means of a bibliographic search of papers adopting a TTM approach to obesity, the present bibliometric study enables the scientific output in this field to be evaluated. The results obtained reveal a growing interest in applying this model to both the treatment of obesity and its prevention. Otherwise, author and journal outputs fit the models proposed by Lotka and Bradford, respectively. Introduction The rapid rise in the prevalence of eating disorders involving overweightness and obesity has seen them become one of the key health problems in an increasing number of countries. Moreover, obesity is associated with many other diseases such as cardiovascular disorders, hypertension, type-II diabetes, certain types of cancer and sleep apnea, among others (WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION, 2000). To date, the strategies used to halt the progression of what is already regarded as an obesity epidemic have had little effect, thus highlighting the limited understanding of this pathology (WOLK & SOMERS, 2006).

A. ANDRÉS et al.: The Transtheoretical Model and obesity 290 Scientometrics 73 (2007) The Transtheoretical Model (TTM) of behaviour change (DICLEMENTE & PROCHASKA, 1982 PROCHASKA & DICLEMENTE, 1983 PROCHASKA et al., 1992a) emphasises the role of motivation, and is currently one of the most promising models in terms of understanding and promoting behaviour change related to the acquisition of healthy lifestyles. This model integrates emotional, cognitive and behavioural processes, as well as principles of change from the main theories of psychotherapy and health psychology (JORDAN et al., 2002), and has proven to be a useful basis for evaluating and monitoring change. Although the model was initially applied in the context of people’s attempts to give up smoking (DICLEMENTE & PROCHASKA, 1982 PROCHASKA & DICLEMENTE, 1983 DICLEMENTE et al., 1985 PROCHASKA et al., 1988), it soon become used in other areas and the same pattern of change was revealed across the stages for a wide range of problems (PROCHASKA, 1994 PROCHASKA et al., 1994). Recent studies have shown that the stages of change model can be applied to the treatment of eating disorders and for weight loss (WILSON & SCHLAM, 2004). Its application has also spread to various issues associated with obesity: eating low fat foods, weight control, diabetes, eating fruit and vegetables, and doing physical exercise (MIILUNPALO et al., 2000 SIERO et al., 2000 STEPTOE et al., 2000 FEINSTEIN & FEINSTEIN, 2001 KIRK et al., 2001). The present report describes a bibliometric study of TTM application in the area of obesity. Bibliometrics is a powerful tool for evaluating scientific output (ROVIRA et al., 2000) and is widely used as a quantitative method for studying productivity by country, research area or institution (HE et al., 2005). Consequently, the present study offers an extensive review of scientific output with respect to what is currently one of the most influential theoretical models in the area of health psychology applied to the specific problem of obesity. Methods Data collection The bibliographic search was conducted during 2005 in the databases of the ISI Web of Knowledge (2005). The criteria for study selection were based on the key words “Transtheoretical Model”, including all articles published in journals prior to 2005. It yielded a total of 437 articles. In order to restrict the study to articles related to the problem of obesity, a content analysis of the abstracts was then conducted. Finally, the study sample was restricted to those articles referring to obesity and excess weight, as well as those concerning behaviour associated with this problem. Therefore, studies aimed at promoting physical exercise or healthy lifestyles in both the general population and patients with cardiovascular disorders or diabetes were also included. By applying these criteria a total of 139 articles were collected.