INTERNAL CAPABILITY 3: HEALTH-SEEKING SKILLS AND BELIEFS, SELF-EFFICACY
Believing in yourself and your health
Overview
Agency 1. Beliefs about one's ability to achieve health outcomes, even under adverse circumstances
Agency 2. Ability to acquire skills (e.g., monitoring glucose levels, use of condoms) and apply them under changing circumstances to work toward positive health outcomes
Agency 3. Confidence in ability to perform or abstain from health behaviors and actions
What is it?
Health-seeking skills and beliefs, and self-efficacy is an internal capability that assesses one's subjective perceptions of their own abilities. Health-seeking beliefs refer to someone believing in their own ability to achieve health outcomes, even under adverse circumstances, whereas self-efficacy refers to someone's confidence in their own abilities to carry out health behaviors. Someone may demonstrate high self-efficacy, thinking they are very capable to performing health behaviors, but low health-seeking beliefs, thinking that no matter what they try to do, they will not reach their full health potential. Finally, health-seeking skills refer to someone's ability to acquire new skills to achieve health outcomes and apply them under changing circumstances. It is possible for someone to profess high health-seeking beliefs and high self-efficacy, but in actuality, demonstrate low health-seeking skills.
Why is it important?
Health-seeking skills and beliefs and self-efficacy are important because our beliefs and perceptions about our abilities shape the strength of our capabilities themselves. They form a basis for tangible health behaviors towards health outcomes. Only when we believe that we can, will we try to work towards health.
What does it look like?
Demonstrating a high capability of health-seeking skills and beliefs, and self-efficacy looks like believing that I can achieve health (e.g. reaching a healthy BMI, even if I have a genetic predisposition to obesity; being drug and alcohol free, even if addiction and alcoholism runs in my family), believing that I can take the actions needed to achieve health (e.g. exercise consistently, eat nutritiously, visit a doctor regularly, abstain from drugs and alcohol), and acquiring skills under changing circumstances (e.g. learning to master the ability of weighing myself every day, adhering to medication regimens, monitoring salt and fluid intake, developing an exercise routine).
How do I do it?
You can develop your health-seeking skills and beliefs, and self-efficacy by developing and maintaining the belief that health is achievable, even if circumstances are changing or challenging. Practice learning new skills, leveraging new resources, and adapting to your environment, rather than keeping old habits and surrendering your health to internal and external changes. Start with bite-sized behavior changes and new habits to build your self-confidence.
BACK TO DEVELOPING CAPABILITIES
BACK TO HEALTH CAPABILITY PROFILE