Intervention Mapping Work Book
This is the Intervention Mapping Work Book. In the workshop/training that this workbook can be used for, the steps of the Intervention Mapping protocol are practised in groups. The structure of the workshop, therefore, is guided by the IM protocol. This is an Open Access book, freely available under the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-SA license.
Introduction
This is the Intervention Mapping Work Book. It is an Open Access book, freely available under the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-SA license at https://im-wb.com. This book is accompanied by an Exercise Document, which is available as a Google Sheet at https://im-wb.com/exercise-book.
Aim of the workshop
The general aim of the workshop is to practice the steps of the Intervention Mapping protocol in groups in one week. The structure of the workshop is guided by the IM protocol, as described in the book PLANNING HEALTH PROMOTION PROGRAMS by Bartholomew et al. (2016). Below, a detailed outline is presented of working with the Intervention Mapping protocol. For each step of the protocol, specific tasks are formulated.
Preparation
To prepare for the workshop, you can read the following Open Access articles:
- Peters, G.-J. Y. (2014). A practical guide to effective behavior change: How to identify what to change in the first place. European Health Psychologist, 16(5), 142-155. https://doi.org/10/ghm799
- Kok, G. (2014). A practical guide to effective behavior change: How to apply theory- and evidence-based behavior change methods in an intervention. European Health Psychologist, 16(5), 156-170. https://doi.org/10/ghm78g
- Ruiter, R. A. C. & Crutzen, R. (2020). Core Processes: How to Use Evidence, Theories, and Research in Planning Behavior Change Interventions. Frontiers in Public Health (8) https://doi.org/10/gb59
- Kok, G., Gottlieb, N. H., Peters, G.-J. Y., Dolan Mullen, P., Parcel, G. S., Ruiter, R. A. C., Fernández, M. E., Markham, C., & Bartholomew, L. K. (2016). A taxonomy of behaviour change methods: an Intervention Mapping approach, Health Psychology Review, 10:3, 297-312. https://doi.org/10/gf2x2w
- Metz, G., Peters, G. J. Y., & Crutzen, R. (2022). Acyclic behavior change diagrams: a tool to report and analyze interventions. Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine, 10(1), 1216–1228. https://doi.org/10/jp9t
Group Work
As a student, you will be performing the tasks in this workbook in workgroups.
To collaborate on the exercises in this book, an exercise document is available as a Google Doc word processor document. Your course instructors may have prepared a version for your group, in which case they will provide the link to you (e.g. in your electronic learning environment). Alternatively, you can copy the standard read-only version that is available at https://im-wb.com/exercise-book. Instructions as to how to copy that document are provided in the beginning of the document itself.
In addition to providing a structure for the answers you will produce in this course, the exercise document will also link to a number of Google Sheets that are better suited for specific tasks. For those spreadsheets, the same is true: either your course instructors may have prepared versions for your group (in which case they will provide the links), or you can copy the read-only versions of the spreadsheets.
From the exercise document and the associated spreadsheets, you will make selections of the most important progress points, decisions, justifications, and issues. You will regularly present these in plenary sessions so that you can receive feedback from an IM expert. Whereas the exercise document is highly structured, following the structure of this workbook, it is up to you to decide what to present and how. To create these slides, use Google Slides (and store the Google Slides document in your Group Folder) to enable smooth synchronous collaboration and presentation of the results.
By the end of the course period, your group will have gone through all the steps, and you will have a full exercise document as well as a full presentation of the most important points. You will then present this final product - your intervention - for one last round of IM-expert feedback, and time to process that feedback to improve your intervention plans. If the course is graded, the final set of documents (the presentation, the exercise document, and the associated spreadsheets) must be handed in at the end of the course period: details will be provided by your instructor.
Core processes
In Intervention Mapping, questions are answered using the core processes. These processes are a systematic approach to obtaining answers that are theory- and evidence based, and allow balancing pragmatic considerations such as resource availability (time, funding) with optimizing answer quality and scientific integrity. These are explained in Chapter 1 of the Intervention Mapping book. The Core Processes are:
- Pose the question(s).
- Brainstorm potential answers to establish what the planning group already knows and draft a provisional list of answers.
- Review the scientific literature for answers based on empirical evidence and/or theory.
- Review applicable theories to expand the potential answers.
- Assess whether new data are needed, and if so, collect and process these.
- Develop a semi-definite list of answers.
Note that like most aspects of IM, application of the core processes is iterative; therefore, the semi-definite list produced in the sixth phase can always be revised. To read more about the Core Processes, there is an Open Access article at doi.org/gb59.
In this course, there is no time to comprehensively apply these core processes. Therefore, instead, you will mostly just brainstorm potential answers. You can supplement the brainstorm with the literature that is provided (if any) and quick internet searches. To find scientific articles, use OpenAlex.
OpenAlex is an open source bibliographic database with scientific literature which you can access at openalex.org. For example, this link searches for all articles with “determinants” or “psychosocial correlates” in their title, as well as “condom use”.
Make sure to not spend too much on obtaining the best answers. It is important that you understand which choices you have to make and how you can justify those choices. The quality of the evidence and theory you use is crucial in real life, but not important in this course.
Citing this book
If you cite this work book, please cite it as:
Peters, G.-J., Oei, N. Y. L., & Ruiter, R. A. C. (2024) Intervention Mapping Work Book. Academy of Behavior Change. https://doi.org/10/nb6j