Behaviour Change Plan
Introduction/Literature Review
Behaviour plays an important role in various personal and collective outcomes, including disease processes. The conduct is the product of individual or communal actions and determines people’s health. According to research, lifestyle risk factors are the leading contributors to ill health (King et al., 2015). Different chronic conditions are either caused or worsened by negative lifestyle choices, such as poor diet. For instance, cardiovascular diseases, different types of cancers, diabetes, obesity, and obstructive lung diseases are strongly related to poor lifestyle choices, especially diet. People continue to pay a high cost of health care burden due to lack of motivation to change the behaviours that contribute to the negative health outcomes (Yardley, Morrison, Bradbury, & Muller, 2015). Once a disease is in the body, failure to challenge the causative agents can be detrimental. Therefore, negative behaviour is an important factor in morbidity and mortality due to lifestyle conditions.
People can manage many health care conditions using behaviour change models. Notably, they can alter their lifestyle to address the issues that lead to development or escalation of certain medical conditions. Behavioural interventions are cost-effective since they do not require medical treatment. The approach uses the conscious effort to avoid behaviours that cause negative health outcomes. The information-motivation-behavioural skills (IMB) model is one of the strategies used to achieve behaviour change outcomes (Chang, Choi, Kim, & Song, 2014). Conducts that result in undesirable health are common and require willingness to challenge long-standing habits (Nseir, Hellou, & Assy, 2014). The process should begin by establishing the goal that the person wants to achieve, such as to reduce the consumption of sugars, to control diseases, such as obesity and diabetes. Behaviour change also includes developing a clear plan, including the actual activities that the person needs to undertake to overcome the negative deeds and replace them with positive ones. Furthermore, it comprises effective approaches and strategies that motivate the change and help to sustain the new lifestyle.
The current health Behaviour change project involves an intentional effort to avoid behaviours that escalate my condition of Chron’s disease and replace them with new healthy ones that control the symptoms and lead a healthy body. The outcome will also help to improve my quality of life by preventing and managing pain and other debilitating symptoms of the condition.
Case History
I was diagnosed with Chron’s disease 10 years ago, which led to high cost of treatment and other negative health outcomes, such as pain, and affected my quality of life. The condition is an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which affects the digestive tract and can cause severe diarrhea, abdominal pain, weight loss, fatigue, and malnutrition. Since the diagnosis, I have continued to experience various negative symptoms of the disease, such as mild to severe vomiting and diarrhea. I lost about 15 kgs since I could not eat due to the inflammation. I also had a fever, cramps, and stomach distention. The pain caused by the condition led to my hospitalization for more than a month. I was on medication for three years to treat the disease and manage the symptoms. With time, I learned to control the symptoms using the right diet since poor nutrition choices worsened the symptoms, and eventually I was able to wean myself off the medications. Nevertheless, from about two years ago, I stopped being keen on strict diet and I could eat anything. As a result, I have been suffering from relapse several times a year; thus, I have had to return to the hospital and go back to medications. I am now committed to avoiding poor diet and control the disease once and for all through significant behavior change.
Methods
The project involves creating a healthy behaviour change program to help me to deal with the symptoms of the Chron’s disease and to prevent a relapse. I will create a goal that I should achieve by the end of the program. For example, my SMART goal will be to completely avoid diets containing fatty food, butter, mayonnaise, oil, corn and so on, drink a lot of water frequently, exercise daily, and try to avoid stress, to prevent the symptoms of Chron’s disease by the end of four weeks. The long-term goal of the behaviour change program is to prevent future recurrence of the symptoms by ensuring that I follow through with the lifestyle change.
I will undertake the program for four weeks, monitoring my progress towards achieving the goals. I will also begin undertaking activities that alter my current conduct moderately, but accelerate the process as the weeks progress. For example, I will begin with the least intensive exercise, such as walking during the first week of the program. By week three and four, I will be accustomed to the changes and achieve success towards my goals. I will use a quantitative data collection tool, such as a questionnaire to record findings. I will collect data, such as the number of times a day I consume healthy diets as opposed to the days that I eat unhealthy foods. I will also record my water consumption and exercise patterns. The achievement of goals will be measured against the reduction of symptoms, such as the number of times a day I vomit, diarrhea, or experience pain. I expect the symptoms to decline gradually due to the new healthy behaviours.
Results
I will collect data after every two weeks of the program to realize my success or lack thereof in achieving my goal of developing healthy behaviour patterns that reduce the symptoms of Chron’s disease. The target behaviour is the avoidance of an unhealthy diet that worsens the symptoms, consumption of adequate water, and exercise. I have realized that the journey towards complete conduct adjustment is complicated, but with commitment, one can become successful. During the first week, I took time to get used to the change. For example, once in a while, I forgot to avoid the detrimental foods, exercising, and taking a lot of water and could only remember at the end of the day. Although I had set my goal to exercise at least four times a week, I could forget and manage to exercise for only two days. I felt guilty since I believed I was not sufficiently motivated to remember my objectives every day. However, during the second week, I had stopped eating the diet that exacerbated the disease symptoms. For example, I found myself eating more fruits and vegetables, and consuming more water. I was also able to exercise at least three days a week. By the end of the third and fourth weeks, I had become accustomed to the behaviour changes, and I was consuming a healthy diet and exercised more often. For the four weeks, I did not have any symptom of the disease, such as pain and vomiting. I was confident that the behaviour change program had achieved its purpose.
Discussion
The first effective step in changing behaviour is to identify the negative patterns in one’s life and replacing them with more positive ones. For example, I have experienced relapses before due to my failure to follow proper diet. Therefore, adjusting this conduct will help me to achieve healthier outcomes. During the four weeks of the program, I achieved the goal of completely avoiding unhealthy diet and replacing it with more healthy choices, such as fruits and vegetables, as well as consuming more water than before. Currently, I am engaging in daily exercises and avoiding any kind of stress from my environment. Generally, although it was challenging following the plan at the beginning, I became better over time. I also motivated myself by thinking about the goal by referring to the pain and regular relapses. Therefore, I was open to any change that would relieve the pain and reduce the cost of continued treatment for the disease.
The behaviour change program has positive effects on the target changes. By the end of the second week of the program, I had become better at avoiding all foods that led to the regression of my achievement towards controlling the symptoms of the disease as I was consuming healthier food choices. As a result, I also noticed a change in the level of pain that I had experienced in the past whenever I ate unhealthy foods, such as those high in fats. By the end of the four weeks, I no longer faced any challenge following the new rules. The pain or any other symptom associated with the medical condition had either subsidized or ended. I had set myself on the path of healthy eating that would continue to a lifetime. I also realized that I had become happier and started gaining weight by the end of the four weeks. Generally, the behaviour change program has improved my quality of life and health outcomes. It has led to my realization that with the commitment I could achieve any goal to improve my life.
Conclusion
The behaviour change program is a learning process for my future health outcomes. I have learned that people become sick or worsen the symptoms of underlying medical conditions due to harmful behaviours, such as poor lifestyle choices. As a result, individuals can change their health and wellbeing by being intentional about complete life adjustments. The first step is to realize the problem and create a goal for the change process. The goal will lead one to the right path to pursue the target goal. The transformations in my life have proven that with commitment, anything is possible. I will use the same approach to address other negative lifestyles. I have learned that it is difficult in the beginning, but commitment and motivation make it easier along the way. I would challenge others to use the same model of behavioural transformation to address health-related issues to become healthier and happier.
References
Chang, S. J., Choi, S., Kim, S. A., & Song, M. (2014). Intervention strategies based on information-motivation-behavioral skills model for health behavior change: a systematic review. Asian Nursing Research, 8(3), 172-181. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anr.2014.08.002
King, K., Meader, N., Wright, K., Graham, H., Power, C., Petticrew, M., … & Sowden, A. J. (2015). Characteristics of interventions targeting multiple lifestyle risk behaviours in adult populations: a systematic scoping review. PloS One, 10(1). doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0117015
Nseir, W., Hellou, E., & Assy, N. (2014). Role of diet and lifestyle changes in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. World Journal of Gastroenterology: WJG, 20(28), 9338. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v20.i28.9338
Yardley, L., Morrison, L., Bradbury, K., & Muller, I. (2015). The person-based approach to intervention development: application to digital health-related behavior change interventions. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 17(1), e30. DOI: 10.2196/jmir.4055
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