Determining readiness to change:

Introduction

Current users

Former users

After the screening questions are completed, a patient's readiness to change must be assessed. This can be done by using the stages of change model of health behavior. The stages of change are part of a larger theory known as the Transtheoretical Model. Each stage is a category along a continuum of readiness to change a problem behavior.

Many factors and processes can affect whether an individual advances from one stage to another, including self-efficacy (belief in one's ability to make a change), decisional balance (the pros and cons of changing), temptations, and habits, as well as psychological, environmental, cultural, socioeconomic, physiological, biochemical, or genetic variables related to the problem.

The five stages of change