Initiation and Maintenance of Health Behaviors
Abstract
The Health Action Process Approach (HAPA) has made important contributions to understanding health behavior change through emphasising the distinction between motivational and volitional influences on behavior and focusing attention on maintenance as well as initiation of health behaviors. The present commentary draws out a number of issues in relation to the contribution of the HAPA to our understanding of health behaviors. Five issues are highlighted: What are the key motivational influences on behavior? What are the key volitional influences on behavior? How does recent research on intention–behavior moderators provide further insights into volitional influences on health behaviors? What are the problems of blurring a distinction between continuum and stage models as is done in the HAPA? What is the value of a distinction between initiation and maintenance of a health behavior? L’Approche des Processus d’Action en faveur de la Santé (HAPA) a apporté une contribution importante à la compréhension des modifications du comportement liéà la santé en soulignant la différence entre les influences motivationnelles et volitionnelles sur la conduite et en s’intéressant aussi bien à la continuité qu’à l’amorce des comportements de santé. Ce commentaire aborde quelques questions en rapport avec la contribution de l’HAPA à notre compréhension des comportements relatifs à la santé. Cinq questions sont posées: quelles sont les influences motivationnelles majeures sur la conduite? Quelles sont les influences volitionnelles majeures sur la conduite? En quoi des recherches récentes sur les modérateurs intention–comportement permettent‐elles de mieux appréhender les influences volitionnelles sur les comportements favorisant la santé; le problème de l’atténuation de la différenciation apparue dans l’HAPA entre les modèles en stades et en continuum; la valeur de la distinction entre adoption et maintien d’un comportement favorable à la santé.
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Those with greater coping self-efficacy are more apt to stay with demanding treatments via cognitive and behavioral mechanisms.
“This is critical, as patients with higher coping self-efficacy beliefs are more likely to persevere in treatments that are difficult through behavioral and cognitive processes (13–15;31–33;59).”
From Reliability and validity of a self‐efficacy instrument for hepatitis C antiviral treatment regimens (2012) · cites this paper as [32]
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- Authors
- Conner, M.
- Affiliations
- University of Leeds (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Conner, Mark
- ORCID
- Conner, Mark
- Venue
- Applied Psychology
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2008-01
- Volume
- 57
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 42-50
- ISSN
- 0269-994X (ISSN-L)
- 1464-0597
- OpenAlex
- W2018833177
- Cited by
- 43
- References
- 31
- Citations by year
- 2025: 2 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 2 · 2017: 1 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 2 · 2013: 2 · 2012: 2
- FWCI
- 6.06
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Applied Psychology (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Behavioral Health and Interventions
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Health and Wellbeing Research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Behavioral and Psychological Studies
- Keywords
- Health Action Process Approach, health behavior change, motivational factors, stage model, continuum model, behaviour change theory
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