Theory of Planned Behavior

The current ANS featured article is titled “Analysis and Evaluation of the Theory of Planned Behavior” by Sueyeon Lee, MSN, RN and Catherine Vincent, PhD, RN. Download your copy of this article while it is featured, and share your comments below – we welcome your discussion! Here is a message sent by Sueyeon Lee about this work:

To explain and predict various human health behaviors, many theories and frameworks have been applied in the nursing discipline. As one of the most influential behavioral theories, the Theory of Planned Behavior has been widely used to predict a number of health-related behaviors and has contributed to knowledge development in nursing. However, the theory has not been examined in depth based on a nursing framework for systematic theory analysis and evaluation. Moreover, there is a need to determine whether the theory can be effectively applied in the current nursing context, in which nursing care, human behavior, and related factors are continuously changing. In our article, we comprehensively and in detail analyzed and evaluated the Theory of Planned Behavior based on Fawcett and DeSanto-Madeya’s nursing framework.

Also, we reviewed previous studies about health behaviors such as physical activity, diet management, and smoking cessation among people with cardiac disease—the leading cause of death worldwide—and evaluated the theory’s application in this population. We think that our results will contribute to a better understanding and appropriate application of the theory within the nursing domain.