Health promotion with adolescents: examining theoretical perspectives to guide research

A guiding theoretical framework in research serves not only to guide a single research study, but also to link previous and future research that is guided by the same framework. Existing theoretical perspectives appropriate for use with adolescent health promotion research were reviewed. Instead of randomly selecting several theories for comparison, an intensive review of the literature was conducted to identify which theories were most commonly used with adolescent health promotion research. The results of this review revealed some interesting and noteworthy information regarding the state of theory use in adolescent health research for the last decade. Information is provided on theoretical perspectives by journal and year of publication. Trends are analyzed so that nurses can evaluate the current state of the science. Social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986), the health belief model (Becker, 1978), and the health promotion model (Pender, 1996) emerged as the most significant theories for adolescent health promotion research and thus are discussed at the end of the article.