Development of a health conception scale

Abstract

Described in this paper are the development, reliability, and validity of an instrument, the Laffrey Health Conception Scale to measure individual perceptions of the meaning of health. The instrument measures four dimensions of health conception: clinical, functional/role performance, adaptive, and eudaimonistic. A score is obtained for each dimension as well as a total score for the four dimensions. The high levels of reliability and validity in preliminary testing indicate that the instrument warrants further development and use with different populations.

Cross-cultural differences in children's concepts of health and illness

“…Furthermore, if analyzed separately, the relationship between the use of this particular model and age and grade level respectively, would not be significant. It is possible that the single question used to assess health definitions in this study was less conducive to expression of ideas fitting the ecological model than was the data collection approach used in other studies (Laffrey 10,11 , 1983;1986). Of course, the younger subject age or the cultural background of the subjects of the present study may also have contributed to the difference in findings in this area.…”

The meaning of health and illness: some considerations for health psychology

“…In line with that, such researchers certainly agree that rather than representing a single entity (e.g. absence of illness), health refers to a number of entities and therefore, is a multidimensional concept (Parsons, 1958;Baumann, 1961;Dolfman, 1974;Natapoff, 1978;Balog, 1978Balog, , 1981Kalnins & Love, 1982;Eberst, 1984;Laffrey, 1986).…”

“…Laffrey's (1983Laffrey's ( , 1986) previous findings provided some evidence that different views of health were associated with engagement in distinct types of health practices. Individuals who had a more eudaimonistic view of health engaged more in health enhancement behaviors, while individuals with a more clinical view of health were more oriented towards strict illness-avoidance and curative practices.…”

“…Although theorists show considerable disagreement as to which and how many components the concept of health actually has, there are some areas of consensus. For instance, most of the researchers would certainly agree that health is a multidimensional construct, and that a universally valid concept of health is unattainable (Parsons, 1958;Baumann, 1961;Dolfman, 1974;Natapoff, 1978;Kalnins & Love, 1982;Eberst, 1984;Laffrey, 1986). The lack of a universally accepted concept of health, however, has in no way impeded the research in this area.…”

“…There have been three majors approaches to the study of health concepts among adults: (a) descriptive studies aimed at understanding individuals' ideas of health (Baumann, 1961;Schall e colaboradores, 1987), (b) investigations target at developing measures of health conceptions (Laffrey, 1986;Wallston, Wallston & Devillis, 1978), and (c) research attempting to explore potential links between a certain conception of health and actual healthy behaviour (Laffrey, 1983(Laffrey, , 1986Segall & Wynd, 1990). Baumann (1961) explored the ideas of health among medical students and patients.…”