The effectiveness of a HIV/AIDS health promotion approach derived from the Health Belief Model

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT:The purpose if this study was to investigate the effectiveness of a HIV/AIDS healthpromotion approach derived from the Health Belief Model (Becker and Maiman, 1975).The Health Belief Model is one of the conceptual models used to explain healthcompliance behaviour. According to the model an individual=s readiness to take actionand engage in health - related behaviour (safe sex in the case of the present study)relative to a particular health condition (HIV/AIDS in the case of the present study) is afunction of three factors. The first factor relates to the individual=s beliefs or perceptionsof his/her likelihood of susceptibility to an illness as well as their perception of theseverity of the consequences of having the illness. The second factor is the perceivedbenefit of action in contrast to the barrier to acting. The third factor relates to access tocues for action, that is cues that trigger appropriate health behaviour.The study was motivated by the observation that the incidence of HIV/AIDS in SouthAfrica continues to rise despite heightened educational efforts undertaken in theworkplace.The research question was two-fold: Firstly, the study was to determine whether therewould be significant differences in HIV/AIDS health beliefs and health behaviourbetween participants receiving a traditional HIV/AIDS workshop and those receiving acognitive restructuring workshop based on the Health Belief Model. Secondly, the studywas to determine whether there was a significant relationship between HIV/AIDS healthbeliefs and HIV/AIDS health behaviourTo test hypotheses relating to differences in health beliefs and health behaviour as wellas the relationship between health beliefs and health behaviour, 78 employees in agovernment department were divided into two groups. One group, the control group,took part in a structured, lecture-type HIV/AIDS health promotion workshop. The othergroup, the experimental group, took part in an unstructured workshop designed to examine commonly held beliefs about HIV/AIDS. Prior to participation in the workshops,both groups completed the researcher designed AIDS Health Beliefs Questionnaire andAIDS Health Behaviour Questionnaires. Both groups then completed the samequestionnaires one month after participating in the workshops and their pre-workshopand post-workshop responses were compared using t-tests. The relationship betweenhealth beliefs and health behaviour was examined using the Pearson r -correlation test.There were no significant differences in health beliefs and health behaviour between thetwo groups at pre- and post-workshop conditions. Only the control group femalesshowed a significant difference in health beliefs at post-workshop assessment. Therewas an overall change in health beliefs at post-workshop assessment for the entirepopulation. There were no significant differences in health beliefs and health behaviourbetween the control group and the experimental group. There was no significantrelationship between health beliefs and health behaviour. Significant relationships wereobserved among the variables of the Health Belief Model. None of the health BeliefModel variables predicted health behaviour.It was concluded that beliefs restructuring workshops had no effect on AIDS healthbehaviour. This study failed to show that positive health beliefs result in positive healthbehaviour.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University