scholarly journals Sense of Coherence and Physical Health. A Review of Previous Findings

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 665-673 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trine Flensborg-Madsen ◽  
Søren Ventegodt ◽  
Joav Merrick
Keyword(s):  
Physical Health ◽  
Sense Of Coherence ◽  
Strong Association ◽  
Psychological Aspects ◽  
Scientific Publications ◽  
Psychological Measures ◽  
Health Measures ◽  
Behavioural Aspects ◽  
Aaron Antonovsky

The aim of this paper is to systematically review the available scientific publications published concerning the association between the sense of coherence (SOC), designed by Aaron Antonovsky (1923-1994), measured with the scales SOC-29 or SOC-13, and different aspects of health. The study is descriptive and integrates more than 50 scientific publications. The results are divided into the categories: Physical health; biological measures; psychological measures; health measures incorporating psychological aspects; stress; and behavioural aspects. The conclusion from this review is that SOC is highly associated with psychological aspects, including stress and behavioural aspects when SOC is operationalized with the prevailing scales. However, we were unable to show a strong association between SOC and physical health that Antonovsky had predicted. Therefore, we conclude that the SOC scale can only serve as a predictor for health that is measured by incorporating psychological aspects, while it is not capable of explaining physical health that is measured only by means of physical terms.

scholarly journals Why is Antonovsky's sense of coherence not correlated to physical health? Analysing Antonovsky's 29-item sense of coherence scale (SOC-29)

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 767-776 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trine Flensborg-Madsen ◽  
Søren Ventegodt ◽  
Joav Merrick
Keyword(s):  
Physical Health ◽  
Statistical Methods ◽  
Sense Of Coherence ◽  
Strong Association ◽  
Statistical Evidence ◽  
Validity And Reliability ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Positive Results

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 statistically means of investigating validity and reliability. In this paper we explore theidea,the concepts,the theoryandthe operationalisationbehind 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 ofcomprehensibility,manageability, andmeaning, seems to be a fair, although mental, conceptualisation 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 into 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.

scholarly journals Sense of Coherence and Physical Health. A “Copenhagen Interpretation” of Antonovsky's SOC Concept

2008 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 451-453 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Christian Endler ◽  
Thomas M. Haug ◽  
Heinz Spranger
Keyword(s):  
Health Status ◽  
Physical Health ◽  
Sense Of Coherence ◽  
Defense Mechanisms ◽  
Health Sciences ◽  
High Impact ◽  
Physical Health Status ◽  
Emotional Aspects ◽  
Aaron Antonovsky ◽  
Possible Cause

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.Flensborg-Madsen et al. from Copenhagen were able to provide a new access regarding SOC and health. They investigated the mixture of emotional aspects and mental constructions as a possible cause for fairly low correlation between SOC and physical health. Thus, in an empirical way, they described “emotional coherence” in relation to physical health, while “mental coherence” was linked topsychologicalhealth. These authors introduced the idea of applying a shortened version of the original 29-item SOC questionnaire, but have not yet developed or tested the shortened questionnaire. Backed by their important findings, it appears to be promising to consider the use of the SOC questionnaire as standardized by Antonovsky, but cleared of the items regarding “predictability”, i.e., Flensborg-Madsen et al. suggested that the items on “predictability” be excluded from the SOC scale when a correlation to physical health is to be investigated. Further investigations in this area of research will be of high impact, not only for health sciences, but also for medical practice.

scholarly journals Sense of Coherence and Physical Health. A Cross-Sectional Study Using a New Scale (SOC II)

2006 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 2200-2211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trine Flensborg-Madsen ◽  
Søren Ventegodt ◽  
Joav Merrick
Keyword(s):  
Physical Health ◽  
Sense Of Coherence ◽  
Psychological Health ◽  
Correlation Coefficients ◽  
Cross Sectional Study ◽  
Physical Symptoms ◽  
Sectional Study ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Health Measures ◽  
Degree Of Association

In this study, we constructed a new sense of coherence scale (SOC II), where we eliminated the notion of predictability (that life is meant to be predictable), which was present in the original SOC scale developed by Aaron Antonovsky (1923–1994) (SOC-29 and SOC-13). Our hypothesis was that SOC II would show a higher degree of association with physical health than the original SOC scale. In order to test this idea, we used a cross-sectional study including 4,648 Danes and used the three different health measures: self-evaluated physical health, physical symptoms, and self-evaluated psychological health. We found that SOC II was positively associated with all three health measures with the correlation coefficients 0.338, 0.282, and 0.578, respectively. Furthermore, we found dose response tendencies for all three health measures across groups of SOC, since health improved with a higher SOC. By means of regression analysis, we found that SOC was significantly associated with all three health measures after stratifying for demographic variables, life style variables, life form variables, and attitude variables, respectively. We conclude from this study that the SOC II scale we developed seems better associated with physical health than found with the original SOC scale. We also postulate that the concept of predictability was irrelevant, or even disturbing, and should not be included in the SOC scale.

scholarly journals Sense of Coherence and Health. The Construction of an Amendment to Antonovsky's Sense of Coherence Scale (SOC II)

2006 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 2133-2139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trine Flensborg-Madsen ◽  
Søren Ventegodt ◽  
Joav Merrick
Keyword(s):  
Physical Health ◽  
Sense Of Coherence ◽  
Aaron Antonovsky

In two previous papers, we concluded that (1) the sense of coherence (SOC) scale developed by Aaron Antonovsky (1923—1994) 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.

scholarly journals Sense of Coherence and Physical Health. The Emotional Sense of Coherence (SOC-E) was Found to be the Best-Known Predictor of Physical Health

2006 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 2147-2157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trine Flensborg-Madsen ◽  
Søren Ventegodt ◽  
Joav Merrick
Keyword(s):  
Physical Health ◽  
Sense Of Coherence ◽  
Psychological Health ◽  
Correlation Matrix ◽  
Aaron Antonovsky

In this study, we created a measure for emotionality named the emotional sense of coherence (SOC-E). We found that SOC-E was significantly associated with physical health (r = 0.266;p< 0.05), while it was not significantly associated with psychological health (r = 0.006; NS). Based on a correlation matrix, we constructed a new scale, the SOC-E II, which was even better associated with physical health (r = 0.362) and also associated with psychological health (r = 0.259;p< 0.01). Our results showed that SOC-E and SOC-E II were better predictors of physical health than the SOC scales developed by Aaron Antonovsky (1923–1994) (SOC-29 and SOC-13). We conclude that emotional coherence is important for physical health, but it is not important in the same way for psychological health. In a previous study, we found that a mental operationalization of Antonovsky's sense of coherence was highly associated with psychological health and not associated with physical health. Based on these two studies, we conclude that physical health is primarily associated with emotions, while psychological health is primarily associated with mentality.

scholarly journals Sense of Coherence and Physical Health. Testing Antonovsky’'s Theory

2006 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 2212-2219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trine Flensborg-Madsen ◽  
Søren Ventegodt ◽  
Joav Merrick
Keyword(s):  
Physical Health ◽  
Sense Of Coherence ◽  
Psychological Health ◽  
Medical Center ◽  
Strong Association ◽  
Causal Link ◽  
Emotional Aspects ◽  
Mental Construct ◽  
Physical And Psychological Health ◽  
The University

In a previous paper, we argued that the original 29-item sense of coherence (SOC) scale developed by Aaron Antonovsky (1923–1994) was insufficient according to its reflection of SOC. The purpose of this study was to create a new version of the original 29-item SOC scale in order to test his hypothesis of a causal link between SOC and physical health. This shorter version was built on the exact same idea, theory, and conceptualization used by Antonovsky, which resulted in a SOC scale containing only 9 abstract questions. These nine questions, in addition to two questions about physical and psychological health, made up a questionnaire answered by 100 people at the entrance hall of the University Medical Center (Rigshospitalet) in Copenhagen. According to Antonovsky’s famous hypothesis, a strong association should be found between SOC and physical health, but surprisingly, we found that the new scale was falsifying the hypothesis, with a correlation between SOC and physical health of only r = 0.044 (NS). However, a highly significant correlation was found with psychological health with r = 0.502 (p= <0.0005). The authors are in a predicament since we strongly believe in Antonovsky’s famous idea of the relationship between SOC and health. However, we believe that it is our emotional aspects that primarily determine our physical health, which we will demonstrate in a subsequent study, but the reason we did not find any significant correlation in this study was the fact that our nine-item SOC scale was very mental (mental in the sense of applying to conscious cognition and attitude). We consider the mental aspects to determine our psychological health and the emotional aspects to determine our physical health. Our conclusion is that the original 29-item SOC scale mixed a few emotional aspects into the otherwise mental construct, which is the reason for the relatively low correlations found until now, when using the original scale.

scholarly journals The Utility of the Timed Up-and-Go Test in Predicting Cognitive Performance: A Cross-Sectional Study of Independent Living Adults in a Retirement Community

2019 ◽  
Vol 39 (10) ◽  
pp. 1163-1168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Van Patten ◽  
Ellen E. Lee ◽  
Sarah A. Graham ◽  
Colin A. Depp ◽  
Ho-Cheol Kim ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Physical Health ◽  
Cognitive Performance ◽  
Psychiatric Symptoms ◽  
Functional Mobility ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Physical And Mental Health ◽  
Cognitive Changes ◽  
Timed Up And Go ◽  
Health Measures

Physical, emotional, and cognitive changes are well documented in aging populations. We administered a comprehensive battery of mental and physical health measures and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA; a cognitive screening tool) to 93 independently living older adults (OAs) residing in a Continuing Care Senior Housing Community. Performance on the Timed Up-and-Go (TUG) test (a measure of functional mobility) correlated more strongly with the MoCA total score than did measures of aging, psychiatric symptoms, sleep, and both self-report and objective physical health. Furthermore, it was associated with MoCA Attention, Language, Memory, and Visuospatial/Executive subscales. The MoCA-TUG relationship remained significant after controlling for demographic and physical/mental health measures. Given that the TUG explained significantly more variance in broad cognitive performance than a comprehensive battery of additional physical and mental health tests, it may function as a multimodal measure of health in OAs, capturing physical changes and correlating with cognitive measures.

scholarly journals Determining a transitional scoring link between PROMIS® pediatric and adult physical health measures

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 1217-1229 ◽  
Author(s):  
David S. Tulsky ◽  
Pamela A. Kisala ◽  
Aaron J. Boulton ◽  
Alan M. Jette ◽  
David Thissen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Physical Health ◽  
Health Measures ◽  
Adult Physical Health
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