Table 3.

Proposed approaches to improving symptom appraisal

Concepts of the social cognitive theory	Definition of the concepts	Approaches to improving symptom appraisal in screening tools
Reciprocal determinism	Dynamic and reciprocal interaction of person, environment and behaviour	Provision of knowledge and skills (person and behaviour) and supportive environment required for symptom appraisal, for example, social support
Behavioural capacity	Ability (knowledge and skills) to perform a behaviour	Provision of symptom knowledge (sight and touch etc)
		Demonstration of symptom self-examination (sight and touch etc)
		Illustration of symptom comparison: differences between target symptoms/signs and symptoms/signs of other conditions (sight and touch etc)
		Instructions on symptom response, namely actions to take upon symptom detection
Expectations	Anticipated consequences of a behaviour	Demonstration of positive outcomes of prompt symptom detection and help-seeking
Self-efficacy	Confidence in one’s ability to perform a behaviour	Adoption of various formats such as text, photo and video to enhance symptom knowledge, self-examination, comparison, and response
		Demonstration of symptom self-examination, comparison and response using role models
Observational learning	Learning through observation for example, modelling of behaviours	Demonstration of symptom self-examination, comparison and response using role models
Reinforcements	Responses to a behaviour that affect the likelihood of reoccurrence	Demonstration of positive outcomes of prompt symptom detection and help-seeking