Effect of Sence of Coherence and Health Promoting Behavior on Overall Health
Author(s): Pooja Gomase, Kumar Gaurav Chhabra*, Priyanka Paul Madhu, Amit Reche, Shivani Kharpate and Gauri Bandre
Abstract
Psychological well-being and health promoting behaviour is an important aspect of human health and well-being. Health promoting behaviours and psychosocial wellbeing are crucial determinants of health status and quality of life. Health promoting activities seek to strengthen the host through a variety of approaches in the form of health education, lifestyle modification, behaviour change, environment modification and nutrition intervention. The individual taking responsibility for his or her health, while at the same time ignoring the social and environmental circumstances which conspire to make them ill. The salutogenic notion focuses on components or circumstances that assist a person in coping with stress, other physical and psychological issues, or even pathogenic exposure. This model seeks to explain why some people are able to maintain and even improve their health in stressful life situations. The Sense of Coherence Measure (SOC) is a scale that examines how people see life and tries to uncover how people may utilise their resources to overcome obstacles and maintain and enhance their health, according to Harvard Health. The scale was developed based on three concepts comprehensibility, manageability and meaningfulness. Sense of Coherence scale was developed based on interviews in detail with the person who has undergone traumatic events with measure consequences in life. Antonovsky further introduced a sense of coherence scale with 13 items i.e. shorter version in which 5 items measure comprehensibility, 4 items measure manageability and 4 items measure meaningfulness. In this scale the score ranges from 13 to 91 points. Antonovsky hypothesized that a high SOC is a prerequisite for successful adaptation to a stressful situation which leads to better health and well-being (quality of life) which has been supported in many studies.