Personal behavior influences one's health.1,2 Many people can improve their health by managing their chronic condition or engaging in health promotion behaviors. Persons with chronic conditions improve their health by managing specific health behaviors, a process that requires behavior change. Healthy people, as well as persons with chronic conditions, have opportunities to improve their health by regularly engaging in health promotion activities, a behavior change process similar or identical to the process used to manage chronic conditions. For example, just as persons with pulmonary conditions who smoke need to change their behavior, healthy people who smoke may also need to change their behavior. Nurses and other healthcare professionals play a major role in identifying behaviors critical to health, assessing the needs of individuals and groups and recommending specific health behaviors, preparing and delivering interventions designed to enhance engagement in health behaviors, and evaluating the effectiveness of interventions for individuals, groups, communities, and the nation. To fulfill these role responsibilities, nurses and other healthcare professionals benefit from understanding the theory and science of health behavior change, what is known as well as the gaps and opportunities. Knowledge development and use are best when built on the success of the past.
The purpose of this article is to present a new midrange descriptive theory, the Integrated Theory of Health Behavior Change (ITHBC), and demonstrate the application of ITHBC in the development of an intervention. This article includes a discussion of select aspects of health behavior change; introduces the ITHBC, including concepts, definitions, and relationships among concepts; and provides an example of how the ITHBC was used to develop an intervention designed to facilitate a specific change.