Facilitating
Behavioural Change
Our GENIAL framework shows that positive health behaviours are critical in facilitating pathways to health and wellbeing. We argue that this has important implications for the understanding, prevention and management of people with chronic conditions. We have presented information which demonstrates the role that negative health behaviours have in contributing to the pathogenesis of chronic conditions (specifically in relation to diet, physical activity and sleep). We have also evidenced how such behaviours may exacerbate chronic conditions. Finally, we have shown how positive health behaviours can assist in the management of many chronic conditions (Marteau, Hollands & Kelly, 2015), lowering the risk of recurrence, reducing symptom severity, improving functioning and, in some cases, even extending longevity (Aldana et al., 2003; Jolliffe et al., 2001; Speck et al., 2010; Williamson et al., 2000). However, the contribution of health behaviours to the aetiology and amelioration of chronic condition has been well established. In response, healthcare providers have created a plethora of guidelines and recommendations regarding optimal diet, physical activity etc. and this information is largely in the public domain. These guidelines are summaried in Table ???. Often treatment approaches for people with chronic conditions includes educating them about healthier life choices.
Despite such education, the majority of individuals fall short of pursuing a healthier lifestyle (Newsom et al., 2011)
\citep*{Van_Cappellen_2017}. Evidence shows that such strategies have minimal impact upon inducing sustained change, especially in individuals of a lower socio-economic status
\citep*{Angermayr2010}. That is, common knowledge is not common action. There is an inherent disconnect between what people know and what they do - often referred to as the intention-behaviour gap (
Sheeran, 2002). It is this intention-behaviour gap that creates a barrier to the uptake of evidence surrounding well-being activities into healthcare practice
\citep*{Francis_2012}. This is because successful change requires more than education or communication of personalised risk information
\citep*{French_2017}. Accordingly, in order to better understand how to effectively target health behaviours in order to prevent or better manage chronic conditions we must better understand how to facilitate behavioural change. The aim of the next section is therefore to briefly review theoretical models and frameworks of behavioural change. We then extract key factors across models and draw implications about how to better facilitate behavioural changes in order to both prevent and better manage chronic conditions.