Week 24: Designing behaviour change interventions

This week we looked into the five different strategies of health promotion and how behaviour science theories have been shown to have a positive impact in health interventions. Having the theory side under our belt, we began to follow the process of designing a behaviour change intervention. In the two hour workshop, I have learnt that I could draw parallel between designing a behaviour change intervention, making a lesson plan as a tutor, designing a marketing scheme for a new product etc. Their successes are all very much to the specificity of the target audience and behaviour, as well as identifying the change needed. This is a process of mapping the COM-B model into intervention and policies. 

Although some of us may argue that pharmacists are unlikely to design behaviour change interventions on their own, it is likely that the increasing involvement of pharmacists in primary care such as non-medical prescribers in GP surgeries and local Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) or even in the six public health interventions per year imposed in the current Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework. I believe the actual evaluation process of considering all the factors that could contribute to a successful intervention is transferrable and applicable in many future roles of pharmacists in primary care. However I do believe a successful design and evaluation of a behaviour change intervention requires a multi-disciplinary approach, drawing expertise from clinicians of different specialities and pharmacists’ input in their expert of medicines can make them a valued member in the team. I am looking forward to applying this planning and evaluation approach in my future role as a community pharmacist.