Originally this theory was developed when
Prochaska and DiClemente studied how smokers
were able to give up their habits (1982
Prochaska studied 872 smokers).
Now it is applied to various fields like weigh loss,
injury prevention and drug problems.
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Behavioural change doesn’t just happen in
one step – instead people tend to progress
through a series of steps. Cessation is a
dynamic process.
The pace is individual. Some stay at one step
for the rest of their lives.
The decision to change and to move through
the steps must come from within the
individual himself – to force people to change
is naive and can be counterproductive.
Relapses are to be
expected!
Proschaska aimed to see whether his model could be
used to predict smoking cessation.
Procedure: 1466 participants included in a minimum
intervention program were asked to complete
assessment questionaires (om confidence, perceived
stress, physical tolerance, perceptions of pros and cons
and smoking processes of change(5)) at the start and
after one and six months.
Result: the results showed that people in the preparation
stage scored higher and ”better” on the other assessment
questions.
Implication: this is a tool that can be used to predict
whether people will be open to change or not.
Hawkins aim – can the stages of change model be
used to predict weight loss.
Procedure: 200 African American women. 142 were
overweight or obese. Classified into different stages
of change.
Result: those in the preparation stage were more
likely to view weigh loss as positive than other
groups.
Implication: knowledge about whether people are
ready or not to change can be useful in social
support and weigh-loss interventions.
West and Sohal (2006) – according to them many exsmokers reported that they just stopped – without
making any plans.
They compared ”unplanned” vs ”planned” attempts to
stop smoking (large-scale cross-sectional survey of exsmokers and smokers who had tried to stop) and saw that
unplanned attempts to quit was actually more successful.
”Catastophe theory” – one catastrophy can change what
matters – the motivation – at once.