DNP 815 Topic 5 DQ 2: A Health Behaviour Change Theory for Your DNP Project

The premise is the instruction. If behaviour change is a process rather than an event, then the theory you propose has to have stages, feedback or accumulation in it. The transtheoretical model is the obvious candidate because its whole structure is stages of change, and it earns its place if your intervention actually does something different for a patient in precontemplation than for one in preparation. Social cognitive theory qualifies too, because self-efficacy builds through mastery experiences over time rather than arriving at once. The health belief model is more of a decision model than a process model, so if you choose it you owe the reader an argument about how perceived susceptibility and barriers shift across repeated encounters. Say which construct your intervention touches, because a theory named and not used is decoration, and a marker can tell the difference in a sentence. Naming the excluded theory shows the premise was read as an instruction.

Then make it correspond to your project rather than to health behaviour in general. If your DNP Project is a heart-failure self-management programme, the theory has to explain why somebody weighs themselves every morning for a year, which is a maintenance problem and points at relapse prevention, cues and reinforcement rather than at initial persuasion. If the target behaviour belongs to staff rather than patients — a hand-hygiene or screening protocol — say so, because behaviour change theory applies to clinicians and the constructs behave differently when the behaviour is occupational rather than personal. Name the measure the theory implies as well: stage distribution at baseline and follow-up, a self-efficacy scale, or observed adherence. A theory that changes what you measure is doing work, and that is the strongest evidence you have chosen it rather than mentioned it. Say who performs the behaviour and how often, because a theory cannot be applied to an aspiration.