Nurses' intentions to give lifestyle support

Models of behaviour change can help identify factors that influence health behaviours such as eating a healthy diet and physical activity. The Theory of Planned Behaviour has been shown to be relatively effective at predicting people's intention to engage in health-related behaviours. More recent research has explored whether it can help predict the intentions of one group of people to support another group to engage in healthy behaviour. This has implications for nurses, who are often facilitators of patient health. This article gives an overview of the model and discusses its potential implications for nurses.