Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Motivation, a non-profit organization that provides mobility and associated services in developing countries, has been providing a peer-support for 25 years. The Motivation peer program consists of 16 sessions that cover various topics (e.g., advocacy, peer, self-care, wheelchair training, vocation and sport). Anecdotally, the program seems to work, but there is little evidence to support the underlying mechanisms that may influence behaviour change among individuals with disabilities. The purpose of this study was to classify behaviour change techniques that exist in Motivation's peer-program using an evidence-based taxonomy of behaviour change. Methods: A Behaviour Change Taxonomy provides a framework for the classification of behavioural interventions according to 93 specific Behaviour Change Techniques (BCTs) and 16 clusters. Two reviewers classified the program and summaries of BCTs were provided for the program as a whole and for each session. Results: The Motivation program uses 36/93 BCTs that fall within 14/16 clusters (reward and threat; repetition and substitution; association; covert learning; identity; natural consequences; feedback and monitoring; goals and planning; social support; comparison of behaviour; self-belief; comparison of outcomes; shaping knowledge; and behaviour experiments). Individual sessions apply between 8 - 26 BCTs to target behaviour change, with the most commonly used BCTs including vicarious experience, social support, natural consequences, social comparison, and verbal persuasion. Significance: Although the Motivation Peer Training program was not initially developed within a theoretical framework, the is evidence of BCTs that fall within 14 behaviour clusters suggests that the program contains important theoretical precursors to behaviour change. Future research will align existing BCTs to within existing behavior change theory, which may inform future programming decisions for individuals with disabilities.