Use of the Behaviour Change Wheel to design an intervention to improve the provision of mental wellbeing support within the audiology setting

OBJECTIVE: This study describes the development of an intervention to increase the frequency of audiologists’ asking about and providing information regarding mental wellbeing within adult audiology services. DESIGN: The Behaviour Change Wheel (BCW), an eight-step systematic process, was followed to develop the intervention. Reports describing the first four steps are published elsewhere. This report describes the final four steps and details the intervention developed. RESULTS: A multifaceted intervention was developed to change audiologists’ behaviours relating to providing mental wellbeing support to adults with hearing loss. Specifically, three behaviours were targeted: (1) asking clients about their mental wellbeing, (2) providing general information on the mental wellbeing impacts of hearing loss, and (3) providing personalised information on managing the mental wellbeing impacts of hearing loss. A variety of intervention functions and behaviour change techniques were incorporated into the intervention, including instruction and demonstration, information about others approval, adding objects to the environment, use of prompts/cues, and endorsement from credible sources. CONCLUSION: This study is the first to use the Behaviour Change Wheel to develop an intervention targeting mental wellbeing support behaviours in audiologists and confirms the usability and usefulness of the approach in a complex area of clinical care. The systematic development of the Ask, Inform, Manage, Encourage, Refer (AIMER) intervention will facilitate a thorough evaluation of its effectiveness in the next phase of this work. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s43058-023-00427-1.