Is there something beyond stages of change in the transtheoretical model? The state of art for physical activity.

Abstract

Over the past 30 years there has been a growing interest in the application of the transtheoretical model (TTM) in the domain of physical activity (PA). Even though this model has been widely used to implement PA interventions, most of these interventions did not use all the TTM’s theoretical constructs. Indeed, several studies focused exclusively on the stages of change while this construct is only descriptive. So, in the present review, we wanted to encourage researchers to go beyond stages of change when they use the TTM. To do so, we aimed to provide an overview of the TTM and its constructs while also presenting on one hand longitudinal studies examining the association between PA and TTM constructs and on the other hand summarising the efficacy of TTM-based interventions as to present future TTM challenges.