How the health belief model can be applied for better understanding the alcohol misuse.
Alcohol consumption has accompanied the human race since Prehistoric Age. Over the centuries the man drew up a lot of prescriptions for alcoholic beverages. The oldest ones are dating back even to year 4000 BC. Nowadays the alcohol consumption is common as well. According to OECD statistics about 10 litres of pure alcohol per person was sold in EU countries in 2014. (2016) People consume alcoholic drinks with varying degrees. However more and more abuse alcohol. This phenomenon increase from year to year and started to be real problem. In 2012, 5.9% of all global deaths were connected with alcohol consumption (WHO, 2014). The crucial thing is to aware people that alcohol consumed in inappropriate amounts can result considerable risks such as health problems or family problems. In order to increase peoples’ engagement in health-promoting behaviours health psychologists created the Health Belief Model [HBM]. In this essay I will describe how the health belief model can be applied in order to understand the problem of alcohol misuse. Mentioned model was developed in 1950s by Irwin Rosenstock, Godfrey Hochbaum and Stephen Kegeles at U.S. Public Health Service and since then has been expanded several times. They have created it ‘in response to the failure of a free tuberculosis (TB) health screening program’ (ReCAPP, 2016). The main aim of this model is to predict health related behaviours. Across decades is become probably the most often used health theory among researchers. The rule how HBM works is simple ‘ it assumes that human’s beliefs impact course of treatment. Or in other words, according to health belief model theory factors like perceived benefits of action, barriers of action and self- efficacy can elucidate someone’s involvement to specified actions whose aim at promoting healthy behaviours.
Thanks to HBM health psychologists can analyse human behaviour and create treatment/campaign/action plan which trigger pro-healthy behaviour among people. For better understanding alcohol misuse we will analyse this facet using health belief model step by step. The health belief model may be use alone as an indication or may be also combined with another theory for better understanding an issue. In the first case the person examining problem consists only in aspects of the model. She or he tries then to think over the subject matter and to place data to the framework of the model and to draw the action plan up at the same time. Combining with other similar theories enable to create more effective education programs. Rosenstock et al. foresaw: ‘It is predicted that the new formulation will more fully account for health-related behavior than did earlier formulations, and will suggest more effective behavioral interventions than have hitherto been available to health educators (1988)’. The second way seems to be more useful for psychologists because every theory has its weaknesses. Use of two ideas allows to fully understood problem and rule out that blanks in model construction. For example, Bandura (cited by Rosenstock et. al, 1988) suggested that HBM ignore efficacy expectations and might not enough explain variety of health related behaviors. In the same article Rosenstock, Strecher and Becker summarized that expanding HBM in self-efficacy broaden dimension of researches and also gives more ideas. Thus HBM is more effective when it is combined with another theory. Nevertheless this paper concentrates on HBM as a theoretical framework for understanding alcohol misuse itself. Therefore the current health belief model consists of seven syntactic parts. There are in turns: perceived severity, perceived susceptibility, cues to action, perceived costs, perceived benefits, health motivation and perceived control. Perceived severity refers to evaluating of consequences of illness and consequences of actions as well. It explains how much the aftermath can be serious and how likely it may occur. For instance there is one individual who doesn’t mind drinking alcoholic beverages; what is more, she/he often misuses it. Possible high-severe health consequences are: cancer (liver, bowel, mouth, gullet, stomach), diseases (of liver, heart; Pancreatitis), brain stroke, shaking hands and many, many others. There are also another, non-health serious consequences, inter alia: unemployment, domestic violence, divorces and homelessness. In the other hand HBM takes into consideration also short-term, low-severe effects (hangover, alcohol poisoning) (NHS Choices, 2016). The second part depicts how individuals perceive their susceptibility. It concerns both optimistic (I have a very strong will so I will not abuse alcohol, It doesn’t concern me, etc.) and objective feelings (My relatives abuse alcohol so it might happen to me as well). Another element of HBM ‘cues to action- includes factors that trigger pro-health actions. They can be internal (i.e. symptoms: weakness, vertigos, pain of liver, nausea, etc.) and external (advices from doctor, family influence, TV announcements). Depending on the intensity of cues, the individual is less or more eager to take health-related action (in this case, it is reducing or ceasing alcohol consumption). Probably every operation carries some effects. If somebody wants to take an action, she/he has to take into account possible costs and benefits. Perceived costs (or barriers) present obstacles in behavior change (withdrawal symptoms: anxiety, insomnia, sweating) whereas perceived benefits picture profits caused by this change (being more healthy, saving money, being example for children). Next two HBM’s demographics were added later to improve operation of HBM. Health motivation indicates on individual’s desire to be healthy person. Motivation can be high or low. Perceived control respond to the question: ‘Do I have control over an action?’ For example person addicted to alcohol is not able to give up this bad habit because simply does not believe that the addiction can be overcome (perceived low control). A situation in which drinking alcohol is in good taste (for instance: business meetings) is another example of perceived low control. Thus we went through the all seven factor of contemporary health belief model. However, the HBM has its own gaps, whose should be mentioned while someone wants to better understand the alcohol misuse issue. Firstly the model does not predict actual behavior but only intentions. Every person is an individual character and nobody knows how she/he will behave. This is very important because psychologists are eager to have at least 95% certainty of their predictions. The next disadvantage is that HBM is small, static and very linear ‘ it is impossible to make interactions between demographics (Rachman, 2016). HBM, moreover, doesn’t pay attention neither on social influence nor emotions whose are significant in this type of speculations. Furthermore Janz and Becker discovered that ‘susceptibility’ showed the lowest significance ratio in one research (1984). It means that people fail to determine their own susceptibility. Basically this fact is another minus of HBM ‘ individuals may not believe that alcoholism can affect them too and model does not consider it.
This paper aimed at applying the health belief model to alcohol misuse. All in all HBM has several limiting defects ex. very rational approach. Notwithstanding there is the best known and probably the most widely used health theory ever. HBM can be also combined with other theories so as to cover disadvantages. For instance Bandura added self-efficacy to HBM in 1988. Improved model enable to perform quite detailed analysis. In spite of having some gaps the health belief model was very useful whilst deliberating about alcohol misuse.