Nosocomial Infection Prevention: Evaluating the Health Belief Model - Research Paper

Introduction

Jeihooni, Kashfi, Bahmandost, and Harsini's (2018) study was aimed at determining the impact of an educational program anchored on the Health Belief Model in making nurses understand the prevention of nosocomial infections. To determine whether the Health Belief Model is effective in ensuring that nurses adhere to behaviors need to prevent nosocomial infections, the researchers utilized a randomized control trial study. In this study, the respondents were randomly assigned to a control group and an intervention group. The intervention group received educational intervention comprised of eight sessions of between fifty-five minutes and an hour presented via PowerPoint presentations, videos, pamphlets, posters, questions and answers, group discussions, and lecture sessions.

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The educational intervention utilized in this article used the Health Belief Model because it addressed most constructs of this model. First, perceived susceptibility construct is utilized in the intervention because nurses were taught on ways of reducing the risk of acquiring the disease (Jeihooni et al., 2018). Second, perceived severity construct is utilized because the nurses were educated on ways of preventing nosocomial infections, e.g., hand disinfection, personal protective equipment (masks and gloves), isolating patients, hand hygiene, biomedical waste, and prevention of transmission of respiratory illnesses.

Third, the intervention addressed the benefits and barriers attributed to the utilization of standard precautions, which encompass the perceived benefits and perceived barriers of the Health Belief Model (Jeihooni et al., 2018). Additionally, the educational intervention utilized the Health Belief Model because it addressed the role played by self-efficacy in standard precautions and implementation of preventive behaviors against nosocomial infections. Moreover, the intervention utilized the Health Belief Model because it addressed the perceived severity construct by educating nurses on nosocomial infections and their symptoms and complications. After the educational intervention, a questionnaire developed based on the constructs of the Health Belief Model, was used to evaluate the performance of nurses regarding the adoption of preventive behaviors against nosocomial infections.

The Strongest Perception Component Used to Address the Health Condition

The health belief model is comprised of four perception components: perceived barriers, perceived benefits, perceived severity, and perceived susceptibility (Austin & Jin, 2017; Mullins-Owens, 2016; Patel, Arocha, & Ancker, 2017; Sharma, 2016; Xu, Gen, Hajiyev, & Cooke, 2017). Because the current study was aimed at determining the impact of the educational program based on the Health Belief Model in making nurses understand the prevention of nosocomial infections, the most relevant perception component is perceived benefits. Specifically, the study sought to use the Health Belief Model to provide an educational intervention whose purpose was to help the nurses understand the benefits of handwashing in the prevention of nosocomial infections.

The Strengths and Limitations of the Health Belief Model

The Health Belief Model has been reported to have two key strengths that make it appropriate for behavior change. First, it has been noted that this theory is straightforward and appeals to health service providers (Orise, 2019), thus medical practitioners can easily adopt it. Secondly, there is vast literature on the effectiveness of the model in behavior change (Jones, Smith, & Llewellyn, 2014).

There are various limitations attributed to the use of the Health Belief Model in predicting behavior change. First, it has been reported that this model does not take into consideration an individual's beliefs, attitudes, and other personal determinants that determine the likelihood that a person will adopt a behavior (LaMorte, 2019). For example, it does explain how a change in attitude leads to change in behavior. Second, the model does not explain how habitual behaviors affect the adoption of new behavior and it influence one's decision to accept a recommended action (e.g., handwashing).

Third, LaMorte (2019) noted that the model does not consider behaviors that are carried out by individuals for non-health related reasons, e.g., social acceptability. For example, in the case of hand hygiene, nurses' adoption of hand hygiene behavior may be associated with the presence of a nurse supervisor or the need to show professional responsibility in the eyes of colleagues. Fourth, the model does not take into consideration the economic and environmental factors that deter or encourage the adoption of a specific behavior (The Rural Health Information Hub, 2019). For instance, in the case of hand hygiene, an economic factor that my promote adoption include healthcare-related costs attributed to nosocomial. On the one hand too, an example of an environmental factor is the presence of fellow nurses who practice the same behavior.

Fifth, LaMorte (2019) maintained that the Health Belief Model posits that every person has access to the same amount of information on a disease or an illness. However, people have different understandings and knowledge of the causes, symptoms, and prevention of diseases because of differential access to information related to the disease. Lastly, LaMorte (2019) reported that the model is based on the assumption that cues to action are widely available in motivating individuals to act and that health-related action is the primary goal in the decision-making process, which might not be the case because people may be driven to change behaviors by non-health factors.

References

Austin, L. L., & Jin, Y. (2017). Social media and crisis communication. Abingdon, UK: Taylor & Francis.

Jeihooni, A. K., Kashfi, S. H., Bahmandost, M., & Harsini, P. A. (2018). Promoting preventive behaviors of nosocomial infections in nurses: The effect of an educational program based on health belief model. Investigacion y Educacion En Enfermeria, 36(1). https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.iee.v36n1e09. Retrieved from http://www.scielo.org.co/scielo.php?pid=S0120-53072018000100009&script=sci_abstract&tlng=pt

Jones, C. J., Smith, H., & Llewellyn, C. (2014). Evaluating the effectiveness of health belief model interventions in improving adherence: A systematic review. Health Psychology Review, 8(3), 253-269. https://doi.org/10.1080/17437199.2013.802623. Retrieved from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17437199.2013.802623

LaMorte, W. W. (2019). The health belief model. Retrieved from http://sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/MPH-Modules/SB/BehavioralChangeTheories/BehavioralChangeTheories2.html

Mullins-Owens, H. (2016). Integrative health services: Ethics, law, and policy for the new public health workforce. New York, NY: Springer.

Orise. (2019). Theory picker-Theories. Retrieved from https://www.orau.gov/hsc/theorypicker/hbm.html

Patel, V. L., Arocha, J. F., & Ancker, J. S. (2017). Cognitive informatics in health and biomedicine: Understanding and modeling health behaviors. New York, NY: Springer.

Sharma. (2016). Theoretical foundations of health education and health promotion. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Publishers.

The Rural Health Information Hub. (2019). The health belief model-Rural health promotion and disease prevention toolkit. Retrieved from https://www.ruralhealthinfo.org/toolkits/health-promotion/2/theories-and-models/health-belief

Xu, J., Gen, M., Hajiyev, A., & Cooke, F. L. (2017). Proceedings of the eleventh international conference on management science and engineering management. New York, NY: Springer.