Time to look at self-rated health: Do time attitudes scores explain variance in self-rated health beyond health indicators?

Abstract

Time attitudes refer to the way in which individuals feel about the past, present, and future and are associated with a range of health outcomes. In the present study, we examined the relationship between time attitudes and self-rated health, adjusted for a range of health indicators, sex, and a proxy for socio-economic status. Participants were school children (N = 3447; 58.8 % female) in the United Kingdom. Time attitudes scores were used to yield clusters, which were entered as factors in Multinomial Logistic Regression models, along with sex and free school meal entitlement (yes/no). Self-rated health was the dependent variable, and other health indicators were entered as covariates. Results showed that most health measures were significantly related to self-rated health. Higher self-rated health was also significantly associated with being male and having higher socio-economic status. Time attitudes clusters explained variance in self-rated health beyond that explained by health-related variables. The results add to a growing literature on a relationship between time attitudes and health outcomes. Based on existing work, it is suggested that interventions focused on time attitudes might be a viable way of promoting health behaviours. However, investigating this claim will require future longitudinal, behaviour change studies.