BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES - Universitatea de Medicină şi Farmacie

- Take it easy with criticism or arguments. Stand your ground on
what you believe is right, but make allowances for the other party. Search
for the "positives" of an argument, of a critical person, as well as your own
positive qualities.
- Finally, if stress seems out of control, discuss it further with your
doctor or health care professional. They may be able to direct you to other
sources for help such as support groups or professionals trained in stress
management.
8.3. Behavior Change Communication
Lifestyles are directly related to the health state. More over studies
say that behavioral factors play a role in each of the twelve leading causes
of death, including chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, and
stroke. In United States and other developed countries the most common
behavioral contributors to mortality, or death, in 1990 included the use of
alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and motor vehicles; diet and activity patterns;
sexual behavior; and illicit use of drugs. Behaviors such as these are
thought to contribute to almost half of the deaths in the United States, and,
according to J. McGinnis and W. Foege (1993), they were responsible for
nearly 1 million deaths in the United States in the year of 1992 alone.
The last two decades of the twentieth century saw a rising interest in
preventing disability and death through changes in health-related
behaviors. Behavior change is not understood as an even but a complex
process that occurs in stages. It is not a question of someone deciding one
day to stop smoking and the next day becoming a nonsmoker for life.
Likewise, most people won't be able to dramatically change their eating
patterns all at once. Even where there is good initial compliance to a
health-related behavior change, a relapse to previous behavior patterns is
very common.
Positive health-related changes come about when people learn about
risks and ways of enhancing health, and when they develop positive
attitudes, social support, self-efficacy, and behavioral skills. The main tool
for acquiring this objective is communication.
Communication has long been an important tool in health
promotion. Although its roots date back hundreds of years (to Cotton
Mather's smallpox vaccination campaign during Colonial American
times), if not thousands of years (to Aristotle's theories of persuasion), the
field of public health communication is very much an outgrowth of
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