Question

Imagine your future work as a health care professional. Where ever you work, you will certainly meet clients and patients who have need for change in lifestyle and health behaviour. Now, your task is to plan a group education session, which is based on the transtheoretical model of change and group education principles. Choose the patient group (e.g. overweight, alcohol, smoking); give reasons for your choice. What kind of patients you will take into the group (e.g. male/female, age, others); give reasons for your choice. Plan the first (1.5 hour) group session for the education. It is important that you will include reasons for all choises and decisions. Write a reflective essay (about 5 pages) with the heading: " Group education by using transtheoretical model of change; In your essay you will desribe the first group session (everything that needs to be taken into account with reasons for your choices). How does transtheoretical model work in group counselling? Reflect also are you able to use the transtheoretical model in your future work. The assignment will be evaluated by the grade (1-5).

Answer 1

Group education by using Transtheoretical model of change .

Transtheoretical model is a model used for behaviour change in an individual.It is a integrated theraphy which has five stages .It assess the readiness of an individual to have a new healthy behaviour and uses the stages and processess to guide the individual.The five stages are Precontemplation,Contemplation,Preparation,Action and Maintainance.

The patient group are smokers .Reason for choosing the tobacco users is simple in the fast forward life people are having lot of stress to relieve there stress most of the people commonly the youth are using tobacco as a healer to get there stress out ,not only tobacco but also alcohol is used but due to the easy availability and being cheaper most of them go for tobacco.For some of the youngsters it has become a trend to use tobacco , because of there peer group pressure,it's like if you don't use you are the odd one out there.

The kind of people in the group will be male mostly young males ,because this portion of the community is heavily engaged in these kind of activities ,they know the side effects but they just act blind to it and follow the fashion and become addict to it .

The transtheoretical model is often used in the health care sector to promote smoking cessation. Smokers need guidance to quit successfully because this is a long time habit or we can say they are addicted to it.

While using the trans theoretical model ,it goes through several stages and the patient has to go through each stage for successful completion ,they can't jump from one stage to other.

Precontemplation-At this stage the person is not at all ready to quit because he is not even thinking to change his behavior. The person is not aware of the need to his behaviour ,for them it is a normal lifestyle which require no change.In this stage the person has never thought of quiting and also does not know the side effects of smoking.The person does not have any inner motivation to change his behaviour.Health professional has to innervate a motivation in the person's to think about behaviour change , encourage self analysis and explain the risks of current behavior.

Contemplation -In this stage ,the person comes to know about the advantages and disadvantages of smoking and associated with behavior change,the person gets motivated and try to learn from others and go through books and shows to learn how to start quiting In this stage the person decides to change his behaviour .Health professional should provide information regarding the side effects of smoking ,the future health condition,which will lead to motivation to change because of the harmful effects of smoking and should identify the barriers to change.

Preparation -In this stage the person makes plan ,gets mentally prepared to cope with the withdrawal symptoms and some lifestyle changes also are made.They will set the time period that by this time they have to achieve the goal.Health professionals should help the person to make the plan and teach him how to cope the withdrawal symptoms.

Action-At this stage the health professional should help the person to implement the action that is to quit smoking.Action is the day when the person completely stops smoking.Maintaing the action phase is important because if it's broken the the person goes to previous stage and relapse occur.Health professionals should teach the person to how to maintain the action because ,if they fail then they have to go through the stages again.

Maintainance- It is the stage where one has to maintain the changed behaviour.Maintaing the changes behavior is a task for the people and many of them relapse .

I am able to use the trans theoretical model in future work as it is a clear cut theory which has five stages and three elements -readiness to change ,barrier to change,expecting relapse,which helps the patient to change his harmful behaviour in well furnished manner by motivating them and by making plans .