The Health Promotion Model

Nursing is a dynamic profession and requires constant change in order to provide the best care for patients. These changes arise from medical advances, research and more often times, theories. (Srof, 2009) The Health Promotion Model theory proposed by Nola Pender, a former professor at the University of Michigan, is a unique theory that focuses on a complimentary counterpart to the health protection models. The Health Promotion Model theory focuses on a multipronged approach to a persons overall well-being and prevention (Srof, 2009). The main idea behind the theory is to improve or change a person’s well-being or health practices through health education to prevent diseases. By educating individuals about certain target health practices, the
(Kahan, 2011) The theory takes note that behavioral specific knowledge is a strong motivational aspect in changing and participating in certain behaviors. The ultimate goal of the Health Promotion Model is to change behavior for a desired outcome (Kahan, 2011). The goal of changing a behavior to a desired outcome is to improve health and increase quality of life. Founding theorist Nola Pender believes that nurse’s action can be essential in modifying variables in a person in order to achieve a desired outcome of better health (Halbert, 2013).
Major Concepts of the Health Promotion Model (Amos, 2010) The Health Promotion Model focuses on three main areas or concepts to change health behaviors: 1) Individual characteristics and experiences 2) behavior-specific cognitions and affect (previous related behaviors) and 3) behavioral outcomes. (Amos,
They can either be a result of biological, psychological or socio-cultural factors. Biological factors that can affect health behavior are age, gender, body mass index etc. Psychological factors include self-esteem, self motivation and definition of health while socio-cultural factors include educational status, acculturation and socioeconomic status (Amos, 2010). Another concept of the Health Promotion Model is how a person perceives the benefits of a certain action (Halbert, 2013). This entails whether or not the person sees positive outcomes that will result from a certain health behavior. As well as the benefits and positive outcomes, a person also anticipates certain barrier from the action. These barriers can also hinder a person from a certain behavior due to personal costs. Perceived self-efficacy is also a major concept in health promotion (Halbert, 2013). The ability to organize and carry out a behavior is very important because it lowers the perception of barrier, which in turn results in the carrying out of a behavior or action (Halbert, 2013). Activity related affect is another concept in the theory. It focuses on the good or bad feeling before and after completing a behavior (Kahan,2011). This concept affects self-efficacy because the more positive the feeling, the higher the self-efficacy and desire to carry out a behavior and vice versa. (Kahan,