A lexicon for measuring maintenance of behavior change.
OBJECTIVE
To establish a workgroup within the NIH-funded Health Maintenance Consortium (HMC) to examine how "maintenance" of behavior change was conceptualized and measured across and within behaviors.


METHODS
Multiple meetings were held by the workgroup to reach consensus definitions of maintenance and maintenance-related constructs across diet/nutrition, tobacco, substance abuse, and physical activity. Once consensus was reached, a survey assessed how maintenance was operationalized across 16 HMC intervention studies.


RESULTS
Seventy-five percent of 16 studies assessed are using a criterion to assess maintenance and are tracking maintenance as a continuous measure. Eighty-one percent are assessing facilitators and barriers, and conceptualizing maintenance as both an intermediate and primary outcome measure. All 16 studies are assessing maintenance at the individual level with fewer at the organizational (N = 3), environmental (N = 3), and policy levels (N = 1).


CONCLUSIONS
This survey found similarities and differences in measurement across behaviors that have important implications for advancing the quality of transbehavioral research.
Seymour
Rachel B
RB
Center for Research on Health and Aging, Institute for Health Research and Policy, University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, IL 60608, USA. rseymo1@uic.edu
Hughes
Susan L
SL
Ory
Marcia G
MG
Elliot
Diane L
DL
Kirby
Kimberly C
KC
Migneault
Jeffrey
J
Patrick
Heather
H
Roll
John M
JM
Williams
Geoffrey
G
D003625:Data Collection / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D009626:Terminology as Topic