A growing role for health professionals is to assist clients to understand how behaviour changes to healthier lifestyles can prevent and manage chronic diseases.
Behaviour changes to healthier lifestyles do not happen as single events, but occur in stages gradually over time. Change is not a linear process. People may cycle through the stages of change a number of times before behaviours become permanent.
Goal for health professionals (HP):
Provide information about healthy lifestyles to clients using knowledge about the stages of change, along with [brief] motivational interviewing strategies to support clients to move through the stages of change towards maintenance of healthy lifestyle behaviours. (10)
It is important to identify the stage the client is in so that the client’s thinking and readiness to change matches the interventions.
Client Profiles in each stage of change give you:
Your advice or assistance should provide information to make the client examine a current lifestyle behaviour. This may prompt the client to think about changing an unhealthy lifestyle behaviour to a healthier one.
Interventions in each stage of change give you:
