Keynote Speaker(s)
Interventions to change behaviour: improving the theoretical basis and the specification of behaviour change techniques (BCTs)
Emeritus Professor Marie Johnston
University of Aberdeen
There
have been many trials of interventions to change the behaviour of patients and
healthcare professionals, some successful and others failing to change
behaviour. At the same time, there have been several calls for the improved
specification and reporting of the content of behaviour change interventions.
Further, in order to build a stronger science of behaviour change, we need
better theoretical understanding of how behaviour change methods might work.
Interventions
contain both active ingredients and methods of delivering them. Several
attempts have been made to describe the active processes in terms of ‘behaviour
change techniques’ (BCTs). We are currently involved in a major project to
integrate and improve the specification of BCTs using consensus methods, and to
develop an internationally usable taxonomy of BCTs.
This
presentation will describe the development of the BCT taxonomy and will
illustrate the BCTs used in recent successful behaviour change interventions to
change the behaviour of dentists, stroke patients and smokers.
As
a basis for behaviour change intervention, we have used a wide range of
theories, both organisational and individual, to predict evidence-based patient
and healthcare professional behaviour. These theoretical approaches are
combined with BCTs to develop the active theoretical base for the
interventions. Nevertheless, further work is necessary to specify methods of
delivery.
