Health Belief Model

HEALTH BELIEF MODEL
Name
Institution
Health belief model (HBM) is a theory that was developed to explain the factors that may motivate or demotivate an individual from taking medical care. The approach was established by psychologists who included Hochbaum, Rosenstock, and Godfrey (Rosenstock et al., 1988). The psychologists did this to understand why people did not go for tuberculosis screening despite the prevalence of the disease and availability of the programs.
The theory shows that people do not refuse to uptake treatment for the sake of it. They do so due to some underlying fundamental reasons that deserve to be checked by both the medical service providers and the individual (Rosenstock et al., 1988). For instance, some people will not go to the hospital after a condition since they do not know its severity. By blaming the victim, the theory aims at activating them to take action to salvage them when ill. It creates internal awareness on the individual on why it may be necessary to pa take health issues more seriously. The proponents of the theory wanted action to come from within since external effort had failed (Hayden, 2017). The earlier method of asking people to go for screening did not work. By focusing on the individual behavior, the individual will make the necessary choice concerning their health.
The theory serves best to explain behavior change as a form of proper medication. According to me, however, the government and the community have a great role to play in ensuring that people take health seriously.

The government needs to make healthcare affordable and accessible for the people to access. The community should look at the welfare of their neighbors to ensure they are healthy and if not take them to hospital. The underlying question then is, how can the healthcare workers help individuals avoiding to seek medication and the same time take care of their compelling interests? Answering this question will shed more light on how to treat patients with deviant behaviors towards medical uptake. References
Hayden, J. (2017). Introduction to health behavior theory. (pp. 35-38). Burlington, MA:
Rosenstock, I. M., Strecher, V. J., & Becker, M. H. (1988). Social learning theory and the health belief model. Health education quarterly, 15(2), 175-183.