Adolescent Sense of Coherence and Antidepressants Usage 11 Years Later (original) (raw)
Related papers
TSW Holistic Health & Medicine, 2000
In two previous papers, we concluded that (1) the sense of coherence (SOC) scale developed by Aaron Antonovsky is unable to prove the association between SOC and the physical health empirically and (2) the SOC scale is unlikely to be a fair materialization of Antonovsky's idea and, thus, unlikely to measure SOC correctly. In order to improve the scale, we developed some new questions that we suggest should be incorporated in a new questionnaire and scale (SOC II) derived directly from Antonovsky's idea and the three key explanatory concepts of SOC: comprehensibility, manageability, and meaningfulness. We hope that this new scale will demonstrate a stronger correlation between SOC and physical health.
Sense of Coherence and Physical Health. A “Copenhagen Interpretation” of Antonovsky’s SOC Concept
Thescientificworldjournal, 2008
According to Antonovsky's (Aaron Antonovsky, 1923-1994) sense of coherence (SOC) model, persons with a high SOC have the ability to benefit from their general defense mechanisms in order to overcome stressful situations. In a health-disease continuum, this leads to the development towards health. However, Antonovsky's global hypothesis that the strength of the SOC may influence the physical health status of a person could not be proven.
Sense of coherence, social structure and health
The European Journal of Public Health, 1994
In order to understand how health can be preserved under very stressful conditions Antonovsky has introduced the concept of sense of coherence (SOC). A number of studies have also been able to show a relationship between SOC and health. Although explicitly developed to explain healthiness among persons exposed to extreme stress, differences in SOC ought to be an additional explanation for differences in ill health between individuals and between groups of people. Focusing on the health consequences of having a low SOC could be one way of reaching a better understanding of the social differentiation of ill health. In this paper we focus on the distribution of low SOC over social classes, age groups and between men and women and the relationship between low SOC on the one hand and psychological distress and circulatory problems on the other. The data set includes 3,949 persons who were 25-75 years old in 1991 and who participated in both the 1981 and 1991 waves of the Swedish Level of Living Survey. The analyses show that workers and farmers have a greater than average risk of reporting a low SOC, whereas the opposite is true for white-collar workers and the self-employed. Older people also tend to run a higher risk of having a low SOC. On the other hand, men and women do not differ. We also find a strong relationship between a low SOC and mental and circulatory health problems, when controlling for age, sex and social class. This relationship is weaker but still strongly significant when possible confounding variables are controlled for.
Antonovsky's sense of coherence scale and the relation with health: a systematic review
Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, 2006
The aim of this paper is to synthesise empirical findings on the salutogenic concept sense of coherence (SOC) and examine its capacity to explain health and its dimensions. Design: The study is descriptive and analytical with a systematic integration of the contemporary knowledge base on the salutogenic research published 1992-2003. The review includes 458 scientific publications and 13 doctoral theses. Setting: Worldwide, based on postgraduate scientific publications in eight authorised databases, doctoral theses, and available books. Main results: SOC is strongly related to perceived health, especially mental health. The stronger the SOC the better the perceived health in general, at least for those with an initial high SOC. This relation is manifested in study populations regardless of age, sex, ethnicity, nationality, and study design. SOC seems to have a main, moderating or mediating role in the explanation of health. Furthermore, the SOC seems to be able to predict health. SOC is an important contributor for the development and maintenance of people's health but does not alone explain the overall health. Conclusion: SOC seems to be a health promoting resource, which strengthens resilience and develops a positive subjective state of health. Salutogenesis is a valuable approach for health promotion and would be worth to implement in practice much more than to date.
Quality of Life Research, 2009
Objective To examine the structure of the sense of coherence (SOC) scale in a general population. Methods This study analysed the responses of 6,217 subjects aged 30 years and over who participated in the Finnish Health 2000 survey (response rate 77.4%). Participants completed an abbreviated 12-item version of the SOC scale. Two alternative structures were tested using confirmatory factor analysis: a one-factor model, with all scale items loaded onto a single latent factor representing the SOC construct, versus a second-order factor model, with scale items loaded onto their corresponding latent factors representing the three SOC components (comprehensibility, manageability and meaningfulness), which are, in turn, dependent on one single higher-order SOC construct. Results The one-factor model was fitted to the data after allowing the errors of comprehensibility item 5 and manageability item 6 to correlate, as was done in previous studies among Finnish adults. The comparative fit index (CFI), Tucker-Lewis index (TLI) and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) for the one-factor model were, respectively, 0.97-0.98, 0.96-0.97 and 0.05-0.09 across both sexes and three age groups. The second-order factor model had correlations between latent factors higher than 1, even after alternative model modifications, casting doubts on this more complex structure. Conclusion These data suggest that the components of comprehensibility, manageability and meaningfulness should be merged when measuring SOC with the 12-item SOC scale in the Finnish general population.
The Scientific World JOURNAL, 2005
We have previously concluded that the use of the Antonovsky sense of coherence (SOC) scale was unable to document a predicted strong association between SOC and physical health. By way of statistical methods, numerous studies have investigated the validity, reliability and applicability of the SOC scale with positive results. However, this paper analyses whether the questions in the SOC scale actually represent the universe of factors necessary to describe the phenomenon of SOC, which we believe is an important supplement to the statistical means of investigating validity and reliability. In this paper we explore the idea, the concepts, the theory and the operationalization behind the SOC Scale. The conclusions are: 1) it seems that Antonovsky's basic idea of coherence, for which he coined the term sense of coherence, as the basis for the highly popular salutogenic orientation, is outstandingly good, in spite of the lack of statistical evidence; 2) the chosen key explanatory concepts of comprehensibility, manageability and meaning seem to be fair, although mental, conceptualizations of this idea; 3) Antonovsky's theory was, unfortunately, much less clear, as Antonovsky assumed predictability to be very important for the sense of coherence, especially for comprehensibility and manageability. This notion of predictability leaves its footprints in his operationalization of SOC in the SOC Scale. Our analysis convinced us that the SOC scale is unlikely to be a fair materialization of the idea of coherence and thus unlikely to measure SOC correctly.
Background: The theory of salutogenesis entails that the ability to use resources for one's wellbeing is more important than the resources themselves. This ability is referred to as the Sense of Coherence (SOC). This paper present the cross-culturally adapted version of the Italian questionnaire (13 items), and the psychometric and statistical testing of the SOC properties. It offers for the first time a view of the distribution of SOC in an Italian sample, and uses a multivariate method to clarify the effects of socio-demographic determinants on SOC.
Sense of Coherence and Medicine Use for Headache Among Adolescents
Journal of Adolescent Health, 2009
Objective: To examine the association between headache, sense of coherence (SOC), and medicine use for headaches in a community-based sample of adolescents. Methods: Epidemiological cross-sectional study, encompassing 20 out of 23 schools in the network of health-promoting schools in the county of South Jutland, Denmark. The study population consisted of students from seventh and ninth grade, participation rate 93%, n ¼ 1393. The students answered questions on demographic variables, health behavior including medicine use, psychosocial health aspects, and sense of coherence, in an anonymous standardized questionnaire. The outcome measure was self-reported medicine use for headaches. The determinants were headache frequency and SOC measured by Wold and Torsheim's version for children of Antonovsky's 13-item SOC scale. Results: Analyses adjusted for age group, family social class, exposure to bullying, and headache frequency showed increasing odds for medicine use for headaches (hereafter: medicine use) by decreasing SOC. There was no association between SOC and medicine use among students with a rare experience of headaches but a significant and graded association among students with at least weekly experience of headaches, that is, frequency of headaches modified the association between SOC and medicine use. Conclusions: We found that adolescents with low SOC used medicine to cope with headaches to a greater extent than adolescents with high SOC. Ó