TTM Paper

As healthcare managers, students will be involved in supporting or even administrating programs for health promotion. This assignment is designed to help students gain an understanding of how to apply change theory and the Transtheoretical Model of Behavioral Change to health promotion activities in the healthcare environment. Consider the lectures and readings about promoting behavioral change. Students will choose a health condition from Healthy People 2020-one that you have not chosen in a previous assignment. This will provide a framework to consider a behavior change that might apply to persons with this condition. Then consider the following question for your paper: How does the "readiness to change" factor affect the success of a change in behavior?

The paper is worth 16 points of your final grade and is due during Module Six.

Please follow the following outline when constructing your paper (Use section headings according to

APA style to add clarity to your discussion):

1. Introduction: Do not use the heading "Introduction"; rather, repeat the title of the paper on the first line of page 2, where the body of the paper begins

a. Describe the intent, or purpose, of the paper (e.g., to apply principles of the TTM for health promotion).

b. Provide brief background information (looking at change theory for a health promotion program, applying TTM, etc.).

c. Identify the chosen condition from healthy people and how you will use that to frame your application.

d. End the introduction with a statement that answers the assignment question (thesis statement) of which the paper will develop the concepts to prove your statement.

2. Condition Chosen: In this section, discuss the condition chosen from Healthy People 2020 that you chose. Give an overview of why this condition is a health risk. Discuss the potential behaviors that may be associated to that condition, and which behavioral changes would promote health. Then (because there may be more than one behavioral change), identify the specific behavior change that you will focus on for this paper. For example, with the condition of obesity, you will discuss the prevalence and health risks. Then, you might identify the related behaviors such as eating large portions, poor food choices, lack of planning, or lack of exercise. However, "weight loss" is not a behavior; it is a symptom. If you are not sure of a behavior, please ask.

After identifying associated behaviors, select ONE behavior to focus on and discuss in more detail. (You may list the associated behaviors; then, discuss the health benefits that may occur by changing that behavior. This provides the rationale.) Plan to use 2 or 3 resources in this section. Only one resource can be from a website (such as Healthy People 2020); the other resources should be journal articles.

3. Overview of the TTM:

a. Explain the stages of TTM.

b. Describe how the TTM works: Discuss motivation and readiness for change (discuss the three outcome measures), identify the 10 processes of change and state how the client looks at the pros and cons of changing their behavior (combining the processes with the outcome measures). Remember, this is still a discussion about the theory behind the model, not as it relates to specific behaviors.

c. Plan to use 2 to 3 sources for this section; you may use journal articles that are posted in the Resources folder, and may want to add a journal article retrieved through a library search. However, you should not use as references any of the non-journal articles posted on websites.

4. Application: Then, this section and the next should demonstrate your ability to apply the theory to practice. Evaluate the information from parts 2 and 3 above and incorporate that here in a logical development of your ideas and analysis.

a. Select one of the stages from the model (this will set a context for your discussion) and identify the processes of change that are typically associated with this stage.

b. Describe how you would influence the person to move to the next stage of behavioral change.

c. The stage you choose may affect the discussion in the next section. Consider how to bridge the ideas and make the connections.

5. Behavioral Changes: In this section, there are three areas to discuss:

a. Make the connections between the targeted behavior change and a person's "readiness to change" associated with the TTM theory.

b. Identify what the healthcare provider might do to influence behavioral changes. You might consider discussing challenges to this approach.

c. Be sure to identify barriers and facilitation factors that may influence the person's success with behavior change.

6.  Evidence: Remember to support your analysis throughout the paper with evidence from the literature. The expectation is that you will use citations in APA format. For a 5-page paper, you should expect to use 3 to 5 different sources, record them in the reference list, and use with appropriate citations in the paper. You may use the sources in the course, and should also search the Shapiro Library for other sources as relates to your focus in the paper.

7. Key Points: Conclude the paper by

a. summarizing the points made in the paper (this is the synthesis of the content), then,

b. Add any thoughts and feelings about your ability to incorporate promoting behavioral change in practice, or describe any ecommendations you have as to what would help to make the health promotion activity successful, regarding the factor of readiness to change.

c. End the conclusion by restating your thesis statement that answers the assignment question.

For additional details, please refer to the Written Paper Rubric.