Nurses report ambivalent beliefs towards health promotion. McBride (1994) found that 95% of nurses recognized the need for the routine delivery of health promotion, 93% thought they were ideally placed to give health education and 84% believed they should be actively helping patients to stop negative health behaviours, such as smoking and overeating. However, McBride (1994) also found that 20% of hospital nurses thought that patients found health promotion boring and linked the concept of health promotion ‘preaching’. Similarly, Williams and MacIntosh (1996) found that some nurses thought health promotion could induce worry and was too detailed for some patients. These latter beliefs are especially prevalent among nurses providing care for people aged over 65 years (Pursey & Luker 1995, Young 1996).