An Application of the Health Belief Model Toward Educational Diagnosis for VD Education

Abstract

A protocol is developed which allows the translation of the Health Belief Model (HBM) to practice in supplying empirical needs assessment data on which to build responsive and effective VD education. The HBM is recognized as among the most important theoretical formulations to explain health behavior available in the health education literature, although there has to date been no information as to how to bridge the gap between theory and practice for actual, specific, and detailed programmatic input. The present study describes a procedure for using the HBM as a tool enabling practitioners to isolate those beliefs that need to be addressed for a given population. Prior attempts at belief identification have been limited to the four major dimensions of the HBM (perceptions of susceptibility, seriousness, barriers, and benefits), often with a single item to address each gross dimension. Such efforts are incapable of determining discrete areas of beliefs subject to change through direct educational intervention. The conceptualization and development of an extended view of these dimensions to include numerous individual entities enables the practitioner to create a data base which overcomes this limitation. The development of the VD Health Belief Scale is detailed. Subscales were operationalized by developing standardized attitude scales comprised of Likert-type items requiring a response on a five-point scale of agreement; instrument refinement occurred at several stages; and selected items were screened through internal consistency item analysis. Resultant scales had acceptable reliability with alphas of .89, .66, .91, .86, and .84. A straightforward procedure is described to explain how the measure is used to develop appropriate needs assessment data using the HBM framework. Studies performed by the authors utilizing the procedure are presented to illustrate the application of the research protocol.

Characteristics of African-Americans with multiple risk factors associated with HIV/AIDS

“…With the emergence of HIV/AIDS and its sexual transmission, health beliefs have been examined as predictors of risk reduction in college students (Simon and Das, 1984;Basen-Engquist, 1992). The majority of research has targeted specific risk behaviors in isolation, but there has been little research which attempted to understand variables which influence the practice of multiple risk behaviors which potentially heighten exposure to HIV.…”

Understanding the role of perceived severity in STD-related care-seeking delays

“…In the case of care seeking for STDs, the HBM assumes that the desire to reduce the physical consequences (severity) of the symptoms or disease is related to a person's positive inclination to maintain good reproductive health [3]. As such, the higher a person's perceived seriousness about his/her symptoms, the more quickly he/she would be expected to seek STD-related care.…”

“…One of the most widely used frameworks in the literature on health-seeking behavior for STDs is the Health Belief Model (HBM) [2][3][4][5][6]. The HBM attempts to predict healthrelated behavior by focusing on the attitudes and beliefs of individuals [7].…”

Structural equation modeling of health belief model influences on exercise behavior among medical center employees

“…Perceived barriers has been found to be significantly related to preventive health behaviors in the influenza and swine flu studies (Aho, 1979;Cummings, Jette & Brock, 1979;Rundall & Wheeler 1979), Langlie's (1977) behaviorally consistent group of preventive health behaviors, preventive sexually transmitted disease checkups (Simon & Das, 1984), and high blood pressure screening (King, 1982). In addition, a study of 30 post coronary artery bypass patients (Tirrell & Hart, 1980) found barriers to be the only HBM component predictive of compliance with an individualized prescribed exercise regimen.…”

“…This is particularly true in relation to behaviors which are on-going or more complex. For example, Simon and Das (1984) …”