BEHAVIOURALLY‐BASED PRINCIPLES AS GUIDELINES FOR HEALTH PROMOTION

Abstract

Programmes to promote health, which appear with increasing frequency, should be based on sound principles. This paper deals with an approach to health promotion based on behavioural theories to explain the change and maintenance of habitual patterns of activity. It derives from work to determine programme guidelines and policy recommendations in the promotion of exercising, and is presented so as to have more general application to health‐related behaviours. It describes some relevant theoretical approaches to behaviour change and maintenance, and outlines a set of principles which may be used as guidelines. This involves an account of stages of behaviour change, operant conditioning and associative learning theories, cognitive‐behavioural and self‐management theories, and social learning theory, and suggests judicious integration of these theories and the use of attitudinal theories. Eleven principles derived from these theories and from research on health behaviour change are described. These perspectives may be useful in work to influence the health‐related behaviours of individuals, and as suggestions for the modification of some environmental and social factors which constrain individuals' capacities to choose health promoting actions. 1985 Public Health Association of Australia