In this position paper, we note that appraisals of health behaviour change
interventions (HBCIs) focus on identifying intervention particulars (e.g.,
techniques, design, theoretical underpinnings, psychological mechanisms, delivery modes) most prominently and consistently associated with desired behaviour change. However, a key aspect of interventions, the implemented healthcare guidelines, do not undergo intensive scrutiny in
intervention research. We provide evidence to show that available healthcare guidelines may be flawed, and as such, may result in ineffective interventions and potential harms for guideline and intervention recipients. We therefore argue that HBCIs would benefit from investigating the accuracy and quality of the embedded guidelines, by using established
guideline appraisal frameworks, and we provide examples of how this can be, systematically, done.