Title:
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Psychosocial factors in health and in illness : the impact of life events, social support, locus of control, polygamy and identity on health in British and Saudi students
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The aim of this study was to examine the relationships
between Life Events, Social Support, Locus of Control, Sex,
Polygamy (for the Saudi students), Culture, Identity and
Health in British and Saudi students. Participants were 524
students. 173 British males and females mainly from London
University and 351 Saudi males and females from King Saud
University. Five measures were used in this study: (1) The
List of Recent Experience, (2) The Cornell Medical Index, (3)
The Locus of Control of Behaviour, (4) The Social Support
Scale for University students and (5) The Identity Scale.
The last two measures were especially developed for this
study. Two methods of estimating the impact of experiences;
subjective and objective and two designs: retrospective and
longitudinal were used in this study.
The retrospective data revealed that life events are
significantly associated with health. The longitudinal data
also revealed that this association between these two
variables is significant when life events were combined with
locus of control or social support for the British students,
and that concurrent events only were significantly associated
with health for the Saudi students. Social support, locus of
control and identity were found to be significantly and
independently related to health. Polygamy (for the Saudi
students) was correlated with health only when combined with
life events.Results also revealed that the relationships between life
events, social support, locus of control, identity and health
were similar in both cultures. Life events, social support,
locus of control and identity were associated with health in
a selective manner. They seem to be more related to some
sections of health than to other sections. In general higher
incidents of life events, low social support, externality and
negative self concept were related to more symptoms.
Subjective estimation of life events predicts variations in
health more than objective estimation of life events. Sex
was found to play a role in the relationships between
psychosocial factors and health especially for the Saudi
students.
The relationships between life events, social support, locus
of control, polygamy, identity, sex and health were discussed
in the light of the present results and a model of these
relationships was suggested in the last chapter of this
study.
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