Identifying potentially relevant behaviours

You may already know the behaviour or behaviours that you want to change to achieve your goal. Whether or not you do, it is often a good idea to start broad – think of the possible behaviours that might be relevant. To help you do this, you might like to talk to other people or keep a diary or look at relevant articles or books.

The type of information you choose to help identify the key behaviour or behaviours to target will depend on your situation and what you want to achieve.

For example, if you wanted to reduce the number of hospital-acquired infections on a ward, you might draw on the following information:

• Observation of health care professionals (e.g., doctors, nurses, cleaning staff) performing their duties in the ward environment
• Interviews with health care professionals who work on the ward to find out what they think and feel about their infection-control behaviours (e.g., what is stopping them carrying them out)
• Literature reviews on infection control in hospital settings that point to key behaviours

By bringing together information gathered from one or more of these sources of information, you can draw up a list of possible behaviours to target.