Theories used in patient/health education.

Patient and health education programs may need to use a multitheory approach to promote health behaviors such as cancer prevention and early detection practices and decrease negative responses such as anxiety, distress, pain, and use of damaging alternative treatments. Multiple intrapersonal, interpersonal, organizational, and community approaches are required. For example, a strategy for breast cancer education should be characterized by an understanding of the target population's attitudes and beliefs about breast cancer, communication of information, education regarding specific facts about breast health and breast cancer, social influence strategies to promote acceptance of the target behaviors, and organizational and community-based interventions to reach the widest audience. Nurses should design education programs that carefully integrate theories to obtain predicted result for the largest number of people for whom the results are desirable. Intervention strategies designed to alter the identified influential factors will have the most successful impact and optimal chance of attaining program goals.