HEALTH PROMOTION (NURSING) MODELS

Pender’s Health Promotion Model (Pender, 1987)

Cognitive-perceptual factors and modifying factors that predict likelihood of an
individual's participation in health-promoting activities.

The likelihood that a person will take action depends on internal cues (such as
personal awareness of
potential for growth) and external cues (such as conversations with others and mass media
information).

• Cognitive-perceptual factors are the following:

o Importance of health—value placed on health; a high value results in
health seeking behavior.
o Perceived control of health—perceived control over health; control
increases likelihood of using preventive services vs. people who feel powerless.
o Perceived self-efficacy—conviction that a person can successfully carry
out behavior to achieve a
goal; high efficacy increases effort; low efficacy results in doubts and giving up.
o Definition of health—how the person defines health influences the extent
to which a person engages
in health promoting behaviors.
o Perceived health status—perception of health status influences the frequency and
intensity of health promoting behaviors.
o Perceived benefits of health promoting behaviors—perceived benefits affect a
person’s level of participation in and continued practice of health promoting behaviors.
o Perceived barriers to health promoting behaviors—perceived barriers (time,
access to facilities, difficulty in performance) affect a person’s level and continued practice of
health promoting behaviors. Barriers can be real or imagined.