Dorien Brouwer

45 Patient perspectives on health-related behavior change PART 1 Social support was experienced as a facilitator of physical activity. Support of spouses was named by three patients. “Yes, I do that with my husband …that’s really nice… I feel his support, like: together we can do this. So that’s really nice.” (18, V72) Some patients appear to have a low perceived severity of their ischemic stroke, which leads to the absence of an intention to quit smoking: “I simply hate it, but I also hate that nothing comes out of those investigations. And therefore I say, well if there is anything that they see, something in my brains, well if there is a bit of a scar, they can see something, then I’m like: shit. But now I just haven’t yet.” (10, V48) However for one participant severity appeared to be a facilitating factor to quit excessive alcohol intake. According to this patient it was a choice between drinking and dying or quit drinking and stay alive. Severity has not been mentioned in relation to other health- related behavior. Self-efficacy Self-efficacy was most common mentioned as a barrier or facilitator of health-related behavior change. “Self-confidence I need to have again…Yes, I want to quit, but I can’t. I can’t.” (004, V66) “I do want to change that, but I just can’t keep up with that. Sometimes it works, most of the time it doesn’t.” (005, V55) Mental, physical and environmental barriers were barriers for health-related behavior change. Mental barriers were mainly mentioned in relation to smoking habits. “Because I feel so much stress. And then I think, now that I had this, this year sucks. … if I have to quit now, I don’t have anything left, I feel a bit like that.” (010, V48)