Introduction to health behaviour change Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Introduction to health behaviour change - Essay Example Prochaska and Velicer (1997) state that â€Å"health behavior change involves progress through six stages of change: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance, and termination.† The first two stages often prove to be the most difficult for the smokers to cope with. The preparation and action stages can be implemented with some difficulties but through commitment, these can be overcome. Maintenance and termination are quite easy once the war against quitting smoking has been won. There are quite a number of benefits that can be achieved from health behaviour change in society and individual. Behaviour change among individuals who smoke is advantageous in that they will reduce the risks of contracting smoking related diseases such as lung cancer. For any smoker, it is never too late to quit smoking since this is the only strategy that can guarantee good healthcare. Behaviour change among smokers is also important to the society at large. Non smokers are affected through passive smoking so if smoking is eradicated, this means that the health of the nonsmokers is not negatively impacted by substances from tobacco smoke. There is growing evidence that both active and passive smoking are harmful to health in Hong Kong. According to McGhee et al. (2006), â€Å" In the Hong Kong population of 6.5 million in 1998, the annual value of direct medical costs, long term care and productivity loss was US$532 million for active smoking and US$156 million for passive smoking†¦Ã¢â‚¬  These statistics paint a gloomy picture over the state of healthcare system in the Hong Kong. Therefore, concerted efforts need to be taken in order to address this problem in society. Positive behaviour change has been identified as the best solution that can help address the problem. There are many advantages of adopting this strategy. The TTM significantly assists in changing the behaviour of the smokers in many ways. For instance, it is known that it