Automaticity, Habit, Routines

Old habits die hard: Disrupting unwanted habitual behaviour

By Annabel Stone and Phillippa Lally, University of Surrey, UK

The New Year is often a time where we aim for change, determined to form new habits and to leave our bad habits behind as the clock strikes midnight. Dusting off our running trainers, filling our shopping trollies with fresh fruit and veg… who hasn’t thought “New Year, New Me”? But a month down the line, why is it our trainers have only seen daylight twice, and that fresh fruit is starting to fur? It seems our bad habits have followed us into the New Year.  (more…)

Brief behavioural intervention, Communication, Interventions, Physical activity

Making Every Health Care Consultation Count: Promoting physical activity in health care settings

By Amanda Daley, Loughborough University, UK

In the United Kingdom and Ireland, the Making Every Contact Count initiative aims to use the thousands of consultations that take place every day between health professionals and patients, to promote healthy behavioural changes.  Specifically, Making Every Contact Count aims to enable and encourage health professionals to capitalise on naturally occurring opportunities in routine practice to deliver brief health behaviour change interventions to patients. The success of approaches such as Making Every Contact Count are dependent on health professionals being willing to have these conversations in consultations every day.  Making Every Contact Count is for everyone, and it is not restricted to specific health professionals, health services or patients.  For these reasons, Making Every Contact Count may reduce health inequalities because the idea is that an inclusive approach is taken whereby all patients receive this support within consultations.

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Cancer, Fear

What if it comes back? The question that is on the minds of those who experienced cancer treatment and their loved ones

By Gozde Ozakinci, University of Stirling 

Cancer is very much associated with scary statistics. For instance, like the one ‘1 in 2 people will develop some form of cancer in their lifetime’.  But there are encouraging developments too that suggests that cancer survival rates are improving.  The last count in 2018 suggests that there are nearly 44 million people who survived the cancer diagnosis and treatment in the world. This is welcome news to those who have experienced cancer diagnosis and treatment. 

The improvement in survival rates also means that more and more people live with the consequences of cancer treatment. One of these consequences is experiencing fears about cancer coming back. In the literature, it is defined as “fear, worry, or concern relating to the possibility that cancer will come back or progress” and recognised widely as one of the most significant issues that impact on the quality of life of those living after a cancer diagnosis.  (more…)

Communication

Understanding what influences organ donation

By Dr Lee Shepherd, Northumbria University, UK and Professor Ronan E. O’Carroll, University of Stirling, UK and Professor Eamonn Ferguson, University of Nottingham, UK

There are numerous stories of how deceased organ transplantation has offered a lifeline for people. Indeed, each deceased organ donor can change the lives of up to nine people. However, there are too few organs available for transplantation. This shortage results in large waiting lists and people dying before they receive an organ. Therefore, we need to understand what factors influence the likelihood that someone will donate their organs when they die.

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Dyadic interventions, Goal setting, Physical activity, Social Support

“Fancy a wee walk?” – Dyadic behaviour change support for walking after stroke

By Stephan Dombrowski, University of New Brunswick, Canada

Walking away from death

Walking is one of the most basic forms of human movement and is associated with a plethora of health benefits. Evidence suggests that those who walk more, are less likely to die prematurely, suggesting that it is possible to walk away from death (at least for a while).

Walking and stroke

Walking as a form of physical activity behaviour is particularly helpful for individuals with stroke, a leading cause of adult disability. Regular physical activity post stroke can reduce the risk of a stroke reoccurring, help with recovery and improve overall functioning, health, and wellbeing. However, people with stroke spend around 75% of waking hours sitting, more than their age-matched peers. Yet, walking is one of the most attainable forms of PA post stroke – 95% of individuals can walk 11 weeks following a stroke. In addition, walking is a preferred form of physical activity for people with stroke who consider it accessible, enjoyable and often sociable. The key question is how to support people with stroke to walk more? (more…)

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Covid, Health Psychology, Mental Health, Public Health

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: A promising approach for those living with Long-COVID

By Amy Barradell, University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust

If I were to say to you, Long-Covid, what would that mean to you?

A sub-set of people that contracted Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), have continued to experience debilitating symptoms for more than 4 weeks following their acute infection. They commonly report both physical (e.g., breathlessness, fatigue) and psychological (e.g., anxiety, cognitive impairments) symptoms. Those experiencing these symptoms call it ‘Long-COVID’.

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Behavioural theory

Bringing behaviour change techniques into practice: Making use of available tools

By Marta Moreira Marques, NOVA University of Lisbon, Portugal

Behaviour change techniques are the building blocks of behavior change interventions. Whether you are trying to help someone increase their physical activity, stop smoking or better adhere to a medication regimen, behavior change techniques are the tools you have at your disposal. Common behavior change techniques include things like goal-setting, self-monitoring, providing information about a behaviour and managing emotions.

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Communication

Effective risk communication is about more than behaviour change: let’s talk about personal risk appraisals

By Victoria Woof and David French, Manchester Centre for Health Psychology, University of Manchester, UK

Traditionally in medicine and health psychology, healthcare professionals have provided patients with their personalised disease risks with the aim of preventing disease. Where risk communication facilitates changes to health behaviour, it can potentially reduce the development of disease and find diseases at treatable stages. For instance communicating the risk of cardiovascular disease to promote the uptake of physical exercise and improved diet to reduce risk. However, there are other possible aims and outcomes to consider when delivering information about disease risk. Further, the goals of healthcare professionals and patients or members of the public may not always be aligned. Several related goals of risk communication have been identified, including facilitating informed choices and producing appropriate affective responses, as well as motivating behaviour change.

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Motivation, Planning, Stress

Staying well at work by job crafting     

by Janne Kaltiainen and Jari Hakanen, Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Finland

What parts of my work do I find motivating, engaging and most beneficial for my well-being? What can I do to get more of these things in my work? 

After beginning to feel stressed, slightly bored and “in a rut” at work, a nurse with a long career and strong professional expertise began to ask herself these questions. The answers to these questions led her to begin mentoring some of her younger colleagues, helping her to feel more competent in her work and more connected to her colleagues, and to again find meaning in her day to day routines. This small change to the way she did her job improved her work-related well-being, and importantly, did not harm the overall operation and effectiveness of the hospital. Rather, her colleagues felt better supported through this mentorship and the overall atmosphere at work improved.   (more…)

Public Health, Stakeholders

Building collaboration between behavioural research and practice to improve health

By Katherine Brown, University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom

The content of this blog post is in part drawn from my experiences working in a split role between a university and a local government public health department, with the opportunity to apply my research, intervention development and evaluation skills in practice.

Whether you’re commissioning, managing, designing or delivering health services, chances are there’s at least one behaviour that you need your service users to change for the service to successfully achieve its targets. This is because, regardless of the disease(s) your service targets, or whether these are communicable (e.g., flu, Covid-19, tuberculosis, sexually transmitted infections) or non-communicable (e.g., heart disease, COPD, type 2 diabetes, obesity), the way people behave contributes to the overall disease burden. This is not to say people should be blamed for their ill-health and considered to be solely responsible for their own health and wellbeing. Quite the opposite! A person’s health status is also the consequence of genetic, biological, social and environmental determinants. Consideration of these factors is key for health improvement and protection.

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