Changing Behaviors: The Behavior Change Wheel and Emergency Nursing

A major challenge in emergency nursing is to provide nonjudgmental and compassionate care to patients in the throes of their emergencies, regardless of their risk-taking behaviors of vaccination status, daredevil stunts, alcohol use, drug use, tobacco use, suicide attempt, self-injury, interpersonal violence, sexual activity, weapon use, hazardous vehicle or machine operation, or dangerous or extreme sports and contests. Best-practice emergency discharge procedures also include lifestyle behavior change coaching interventions such as smoking cessation and improving diet and physical activity habits. Nurse scholars often use the Theory of Planned Behavior5 or the Health Belief Model6 to plan and develop interventions that target behavior change.7-9 For example, McDonald et al7,8 developed an injury prevention program to reduce distracted driving for teen drivers that was based on the Theory of Planned Behavior model components of attitude, norms, and perceived control. Government, organization, and unit policies are necessary to support effective and successful interventions. [...]the third layer of the Behavior Change Wheel is composed of 7 policy categories: communication/marketing, guidelines, fiscal, regulation, legislation, environmental/social planning, and service provision.