2023 Annual report Behaviour Change
This year we were particularly interested in finding out which primary care researchers identify with the topic of behaviour change. We believe that much of primary care research involves behaviour change but that research teams may not always recognise this or talk about their research (aims) by using these words.
As part of a SAPC newsletter in April we included a link to a brief survey for any primary care researcher to complete. We did not specify that the survey was on behalf of the Behaviour Change SIG as we did not want to influence responses.
We asked researchers what type of research they were involved in. The most common answers were qualitative research (87%), and systematic reviews (75%) with behaviour change coming in joint-third alongside clinical trials (43%).
Interestingly when we asked a question about whether research projects involved specific examples of behaviour change (again not identifying these examples as changing behaviour) all respondents reported that their research involved at least one example of behaviour change. The most common of these was helping people to self-manage a health condition (66%), improving patient-clinician communication (60%), encouraging healthcare professionals to use a new tool/algorithm (47%) and implementing organisational change (47%).
We were encouraged that so many people are targeting behaviour in their research but note that researchers do not necessarily recognise they are doing ‘behaviour change research’ and may not be applying behavioural science approaches or techniques. Going forwards we are thinking about how to highlight the different behaviours which are commonly targeted in primary care research and sharing examples of these to help researchers think about how behavioural science could be more ‘officially’ incorporated into their work.
Lastly, in May, 29 members signed up for an online networking event to meet other primary care researchers interested in behaviour change. We aimed to get people into small groups to discuss their research and to share how they are using behavioural science methods or theories (or how they want to learn about using them). We had lots of interest for the event, predominantly from EMCRs, including people from 17 institutions. Unfortunately, due to a family bereavement we had to postpone this event and will be running it instead in May 2024.
In 2024, we are planning to run behaviour change workshop at the annual SAPC conference and to host an in person SIG meeting. We look forward to seeing people in Bristol!