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

2006 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 248-255
Author(s):  
Trine Flensborg-Madsen ◽  
Søren Ventegodt ◽  
Joav Merrick
Keyword(s):  
Physical Health ◽  
Sense Of Coherence

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 1 ◽  
pp. 236-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trine Flensborg-Madsen Trine Flensborg-Madsen ◽  
Søren Ventegodt ◽  
Joav Merrick
Keyword(s):  
Physical Health ◽  
Sense Of Coherence ◽  
Cross Sectional Study ◽  
Sectional Study ◽  
Cross Sectional

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.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document