Low control beliefs in relation to school dropout and poor health: findings from the SIODO case–control study

Abstract

BackgroundThere is cumulating evidence that health is compromised through adverse socioeconomic conditions negatively affecting how people think, feel, and behave. Low control beliefs might be a key mechanism. The reversed possibility that low control beliefs might set people on a pathway towards adverse socioeconomic and health-related outcomes is much less examined.MethodsA case–control design was used, consisting of 330 cases who dropped out of school in the 2010–2011 school year and 330 controls who still attended school at the end of that year. The respondents, aged between 18 and 23, came from Eindhoven and surrounding areas in the south-east of The Netherlands. A questionnaire asked for current health status, recalled socioeconomic and social background, and recalled control beliefs (mastery and general self-efficacy). Logistic regression analyses were used.ResultsRecalls of low mastery and low self-efficacy were strongly related to both dropout and less than good health. Low socioeconomic background was also associated to odds of dropout, but did not confound or moderate the associations of low control beliefs with dropout and health. Odds ratios of dropout and less than good health indicated at least twice the odds of a poor outcome with recalls of low control beliefs.ConclusionsIndependent of the socioeconomic background, low control beliefs are related to heightened odds of both poor health and school dropout. Individual differences in control beliefs might thus be as fundamental as socioeconomic conditions in generating life-course socioeconomic and health-related pathways. Although the findings should first be cross-validated in prospective studies, public health professionals working with youth might already start considering early interventions in youth with all too fatalistic and powerless mind-sets.

Relevant patient characteristics for guiding tailored integrated diabetes primary care: a systematic review

“…Studies performed in a non-integrated diabetes care setting, found that context-related characteristics, such as socio-economic status and social network, are associated with measures of diabetes control and are likely to be strong predictors of diabetes control (Jotkowitz et al, 2006;Nam et al, 2011). Person-related characteristics, such as low mastery and low self-efficacy, have been related to negative health outcomes (Bosma et al, 2014;Elissen et al, 2017). Traditionally, researchers and care providers have looked at diabetes from a mostly biomedical viewpoint, which might explain the relatively scarce collection of context-and person-related characteristics in routinely collected individual patient data (Hasnain-Wynia and Baker, 2006).…”

Why Wait? Early Determinants of School Dropout in Preventive Pediatric Primary Care

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Is personality a driving force for socioeconomic differences in young adults’ health care use? A prospective cohort study

“…Our findings thus do not help in better explaining socioeconomic differences in health care use, nor do they help in envisaging different types of interventions aimed at tackling these differences. Future studies should try to avoid our study’s drawbacks and evaluate how also other third factors, such as control beliefs (Bosma et al 2014 ) and intellectual abilities (Batty et al 2006 ; Mackenbach 2005 ), might be driving forces in the aetiology of socioeconomic health differences.…”