Students' sense of responsibility for their own health and self-esteem elements
Keywords:
health, Locus of Control, Internal-External Locus of Control, responsibility, self-esteem, self-effi cacy, studentsAbstract
Introduction. The role of individual beliefs in prophylaxis of diseases has been widely discussed since the mid of the last century. Such beliefs can be measured with the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control Scale (MHLC) created by K. A. Wallston, B. S. Wallston and R. F. DeVellis. Such a tool examines three dimensions of so called health control: Internal Health Locus of Control (IHLC), Powerful Others Health Locus of Control (PHLC) as well as Chance Health Locus of Control (CHLC). Such a scale allows defi ning whether and to what extent the examined person is convinced that he/she is responsible for his/her health condition.
The aim. The aim of the examination was to defi ne the psychological structure of health control, in relation to self-esteem and the sense of self-effi cacy in a group of students aged between 18 and 25 years.
Material and methods. The research comprised 518 randomly chosen students at the age between 18 and 25 years, studying at Lublin’s universities. The examined group consisted of 69.5% of women (N=360) and 30.5% of men (N=158). The average age of respondents came to 21.62 (SD 3,462). In the Polish adaptation of the research the following aspects have been deployed: version B of the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control Scale (MHLC), M. Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale (SES) as well as the Polish version of the Generalized Self-Effi cacy Scale (GSES).
Conclusions. The following conclusions have been drawn: In the fi eld of responsibility for one’s own health, students proved that the importance of the self-control mechanisms prevails the belief that other people are responsible for the students’ health; belief about self-responsibility for one’s own health correlates with results of self-esteem tests; there is a strong correlation between the self-esteem and the self-effi cacy in the examined group; there is a relationship between material conditions, selfesteem, self-effi cacy and the belief of other people’s infl uence on one’s own health condition; The Multidimensional Health Locus of Control Scale (MHLC) is the useful tool allowing one to estimate the degree of responsibility for one’s own health both in the social and in the individual dimension.
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