Counseling for Risky Health Habits: A Conceptual Framework for Primary Care Practitioners

Risky lifestyle choices contribute to many contemporary health conditions. Primary care practitioners have frequent opportunities to help patients clarify issues and alter adverse behaviour patterns. This paper formulates a conceptual framework for counseling in the primary care setting, clarifying the different forms, key principles, and tasks for the counselor that best represent the requirements for successful counseling. It describes four theoretical approaches that have contributed to our understanding of lifestyle change. A series of evidence-based illustrations are used to demonstrate how elements of these different models have been applied. The six risky behaviours addressed in this paper are appropriate targets for counseling. Some situations respond to brief on-the-spot advice, others require a few repeated counseling sessions utilizing concepts from behavioural theory, and certain ones need referral to a structured counseling program that employs a longer time-frame and allows for the opportunity to use a range of methods.