Introduction
HBM was first developed in the 1950s as a model used to explain why a person “may or may not engage in preventive health measures” (Luquis & Kensinger, 2018, p. 37).
In 1984, Becker and Rosenstock modified the model, using it to explain and predict people’s health behavior (Anuar et al., 2020, p. 203).
HBM consists of 6 domains:
- Perceived severity and susceptibility
- Perceived benefits and barriers
- Cues to action
- Self-efficacy (Bechard et al., 2021, p. 2)
Relevance to Family Nursing Practice
- Provides a theoretical framework for nurses
- Helps Family Nurse Practitioners (FNP) treat patients and prevent chronic illnesses
- Improves quality of patients’ lives
- Explains and predicts changes in health behavior
- Guides health promotion
Patients’ Perceptions and Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic
- As of March 4, 2021, over 115M global cases of COVID-19 were confirmed, and more than 2.5M deaths (Bechard et al., 2021, p. 2)
- The impact of human perceptions and responses to the pandemic is significant
- Role of personal health behaviors
- Governmental interventions
The Use of the HBM to Address the COVID-19 Pandemic
- The HBM can be used as a framework to understand the relationships between public health beliefs and behaviors for preventing the COVID-19 transmission
- Compare perceived COVID-19 severity, susceptibility, benefits, and barriers across different age groups
- Explain how self-efficacy can be used to achieve health goals (Tsai et al., 2021, p. 2)
- Assess the impact of internal and external cues to action on health behavior (Raamkumar et al., 2020)
The Unique Insight Offered through the Application of the HBM
The HBM is an important tool to influence COVID-19 vaccination and increase the acceptance of the vaccine among the population
The HBM assesses:
- Perceived benefits, or human beliefs about being vaccinated;
- Perceived barriers, or human beliefs that they cannot be vaccinated due to physical, psychosocial, religious, or financial factors;
- Cues to action, or various internal and external factors guiding a person to be or not to be vaccinated (Wong et al., 2020, p. 2205)
Conclusion
The HBM as an essential predictor of COVID-19 vaccination. It helps understand benefits and barriers to health behavior changes, needed to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 infection. An effective tool for understanding acceptance of preventive measures among the population. Influences the choice of an approach to every patient.
References
Anuar, H., Shah, S. A., Gafor, H., Mahmood, M. I., & Ghazi, H. F. (2020). Usage of Health Belief Model (HBM) in health behavior: A systematic review. Malaysian Journal of Medicine and Health Sciences, 16(11), 201-209. Web.
Bechard, L. E., Bergelt, M., Neudorf, B., DeSouza, T. C., & Middleton, L. E. (2021). Using the Health Belief Model to understand age differences in perceptions and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 1-13. Web.
Luquis, R. R., & Kensinger, W. S. (2018). Applying the Health Belief Model to assess prevention services among young adults. International Journal of Health Promotion and Education, 57(1), 37-47. Web.
Raamkumar, A. S., Tan, S. G., & Wee, H. L. (2020). Use of Health Belief Model-based deep learning classifiers for COVID-19 social media content to examine public perceptions of physical distancing: Model development and case study. JMIR Public Health Surveil, 6(3),1-8. Web.
Tsai, F.-J., Hu, Y.-J., Chen, C.-Y., Tseng, C.-C., Yeh, G.-L., & Cheng, J.-F. (2021). Using the health belief model to explore nursing students’ relationships between COVID-19 knowledge, health beliefs, cues to action, self-efficacy, and behavioral intention: A cross-sectional survey study. Medicine, 100(11), 1-7. Web.
Wong, L. P., Alias, H., Wong, P.-F., Lee, H.-Y., & AbuBakar, S. (2020). The use of the health belief model to assess predictors of intent to receive the COVID-19 vaccine and willingness to pay. Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics, 16(9), 2204-2214. Web.