The process of change is also referred to as the Trans-theoretical model was developed in the 70s. Through it, scientists have shown that patients can quit some unpleasant behavior on their own if they employed the necessary efforts (Bamberg, 2013). For instance, smokers could use the process of change to quit their smoking habits with little medical intervention. However, it has been reported that people can quit behaviors only if they are ready to do so. Typically the process of change focuses on decision-making of the patients. This process is gradual and does not happen instantly. The process of change involves different stages such as pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation action, maintenance, and termination.
Pre-contemplation is a stage in which the patient is not showing any intention to take action on his behavior. He or she will not depict any intention to stop or quit the behavior that is impacting their heath. For instance, the tobacco smokers might not think of quitting at this stage. In this stage the person might not be aware that their behavior is risky and might affect their health and lives. An individual might find it easy to underestimate the advantages of changing the behavior. He or she might focus on the hardships of changing the behavior. They may defend their patterns of behavior and them only concentrate on the benefits and pleasures of the habit. Smokers might praise the smoking habit but they are of the opinion that the habit offers them pleasure (Riddle Jr et al. 2016).
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Contemplation is the second stage in the process of change. In this stage the person have started to think of the possibility to the need to quit or reduce the patterns of the behavior. They may be afraid to take the next step and therefore not quit the behavior immediately. For instance, people who have a habit of tobacco or drug abuse may start realizing the need to stop the habit. The thing that makes it hard to quit at this stage is that they derive enjoyment, excitement and pleasure from the behavior (Sallis, Owen, & Fisher, 2015). They may be experiencing some consequences that make them notice they have a problem. For instance, drug abuse could make the individual to face personal, psychological social or family problems.
Preparation or determination is the third stage in the change process. Here the patient might have shown effort in the recent past to change his or her behavior. After realizing the risks brought by their behaviors, the smoker ad drug abusers may try to change the pattern of their behavior. In this stage they have clearly seen that the cons of their behaviors tend to outweigh the pleasure and the excitement (Rasouli, & Timmermans, 2017). In preparation the patients are ready to take action if they are motivated to do so. Some other people might not be shown evident effort to charge their behavior but they seem to be stagnant in taking action.
Action is a stage in which people have recently changed their behavior. The change might have taken place within the last six months and the patient shows an intention of keeping moving forward with the behavior change. People in this stage may attempt to try different techniques and are at the greatest risk of relapse. However, it is possible to work and prevent replaces to earlier stages ( Sigler, Mahmoudi, & Graham, 2014).
Maintenance entail being able to avoid temptations of returning to the behavior. The person has reformed and may have sustained their Beauvoir change for a while. They show the intention of maintaining the behavior change going forward. People in this stage may have learned to handle temptations and can now employ the newer ways of coping.
Termination is the last stage and people here have no desire to return to their unhealthy behaviors and are sure they won’t fall back ( Lepri et al., 2016). For instance the smokers have managed to quit and is now able to keep off people who might attempt to lure them into returning to the behavior.
References
Bamberg, S. (2013). Changing environmentally harmful behaviors: A stage model of self- regulated behavioral change. Journal of Environmental Psychology , 34 , 151-159.
Lepri, B., Staiano, J., Shmueli, E., Pianesi, F., & Pentland, A. (2016). The role of personality in shaping social networks and mediating behavioral change. User Modeling and User- Adapted Interaction , 26 (2-3), 143-175.
Rasouli, S., & Timmermans, H. (2017). Models of Behavioral Change and Adaptation. In Life- Oriented Behavioral Research for Urban Policy (pp. 451-477). Springer, Tokyo.
Riddle Jr, P. J., Newman-Norlund, R. D., Baer, J., & Thrasher, J. F. (2016). Neural response to pictorial health warning labels can predict smoking behavioral change. Social cognitive and affective neuroscience , 11 (11), 1802-1811.
Sigler, R., Mahmoudi, L., & Graham, J. P. (2014). Analysis of behavioral change techniques in community-led total sanitation programs. Health promotion international , 30 (1), 16-28.
Sallis, J. F., Owen, N., & Fisher, E. (2015). Ecological models of health behavior. Health behavior: Theory, research, and practice , 5 , 43-64.
