Aspects Of Positive Health Research Articles

Zum Zusammenhang zwischen körperlicher Aktivität und Gesundheit bei Kindern und Jugendlichen

The question of whether physical activity is associated with positive aspects of health becomes increasingly more important in the light of the health status in today's children and adolescents and due to the changing lifestyle with respect to everyday activity. The German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents (KiGGS) collected the first set of nationwide representative cross-sectional data to examine the relationship between health and physical activity. Taking sociodemographic parameters into consideration, the results suggest a positive association between self-estimated general health and several types of physical activity. The results vary with respect to gender and type of physical activity. For methodological reasons, causal conclusions can only be drawn after longitudinal data of the second wave of KiGGS are available.

Person centered care and Economic Deprivation: an epidemiological view of positive mental health in a less-developed country

Introduction : Positive health is one of the main components of person centered integrative diagnosis, as it involves the understanding of the patient's clinical condition within his context. Poverty is an important contextual factor that has been related to negative aspects of mental health in many studies, but little have been studied in regard to positive health, which should raised the importance of integrative care in poor persons. Objective : To identify in an adult population the extent to which poverty indicators are related to positive mental health indicators. Methods : The study consisted of a face-to-face household survey of 6555 community aged 18 years and older residents in five cities of the coast of Peru, selected trough a probabilistic three-stage sample procedure. The study integrated person-centered diagnosis proposals and other positive aspects of health as part of a comprehensive assessment which included an adaptation and complementation of the IGDA diagnostic suggestions through the following instruments: the MINI International Neuropsychiatric Interview ICD-10 version, the Quality of Life Index, the Mental Health Questionnaire (MHQ) elaborated in Colombia. Socioeconomic data were assessed using a question from the MHQ about the family capacity to supply essential needs with the household income. Relational statistical analyses between the different components of the diagnostic formulation and other positive aspects of health and socioeconomic condition were conducted. Results : The average age was 39 years, illiteracy rate was 3.6%; 59.2% of the sample were not working last week and the poverty line measured by the family capacity to supply essential needs with the household income was 25.5%. Economic deprivation was associated with worst indicators of positive mental health such lower scores on quality of life measures; more self-care functioning difficulties; lower satisfaction with personal aspects such as physical appearance, intelligence, education or work conditions; less feelings of happiness, more perceived psychosocial stressors with work, children and health; and lower family integration. Conclusions : Implications of socioeconomic aspects in regard to the comprehensive diagnostic processes, treatment and research should be considered, particularly in less-developed countries. Health policies based on person centered care programs through the assessment of positive health could help to be more sensitive to more vulnerable sectors of the populations.

Real mental health promotion requires a reorientation of nursing education, practice and research

The evidence for the individual, social and economic benefits of mental health promotion is now well established. The indication is that a broader public health approach that addresses social and environmental factors related to mental health and well-being is required. Mainstream mental health services, however, continue to operate in relative isolation, allocating the greatest proportion of funding and resources to the treatment of mental illness and disorder. Relevant to health promotion, this paper explores the bidirectional link between physical and mental health and the social determinants of mental health. The growing interest in the positive aspects of health and well-being which focuses on wellness rather than illness is also discussed. One example of how mental health nurses can adopt principles of positive mental health to education, practice and research is presented. The author proposes that as the largest professional group in health care, nurses must become more actively involved in initiatives that reorientate practices and services away from an illness culture towards the adoption of wider mental health promotion principles.

Children, health assets and poverty in a recent post-war scenario: the Angola case

Angola is a Portuguese-speaking country that faced a recent civil war, after decades of colonial occupation and conflict, and still exhibits a scenario of poverty. Well-fare, health concerns and schooling are still a privilege. A school-based survey was carried out in all four schools in Benguela (South of Angola), 22 randomly classes were selected, including 701 pupils, attending 8th and 10th grade, being 55.2% boys. Mean age in the present study was 17.5 years old, SD 3.25. Descriptive and multi-variated analysis revealed that the perception of family well fare is mainly associated with positive aspects of health: fruit intake, perception of school competence, mother instruction level and number of friends. Life satisfaction was associated with family well fare, as well as with mother level of instruction, fruit intake and perception of safety in school. The health assets’ perspective seems thus to propose a new way of identifying and fulfilling needs in a developing country. Present results suggest a focus on positive issues such as schooling, social capital/friends, and healthy food, as relevant factors to promoting teens’ health and well-being, in a country in a recent post-war scenario. REVISTA BRASILEIRA DE TERAPIAS COGNITIVAS, 2008, Volume 4, Numero 2 DOI: 10.5935/1808-5687.20080012

Towards innovative international classification and diagnostic systems: ICD‐11 and person‐centered integrative diagnosis

Towards innovative international classification and diagnostic systems: ICD‐11 and person‐centered integrative diagnosis

Grupos de promoção à saúde no desenvolvimento da autonomia, condições de vida e saúde

This article presents the methodology of Health Promotion Groups, which were conceived as a means of contributing towards developing autonomy, improving living conditions and promoting health. The method is identified as a collective and interdisciplinary health intervention, consisting of a group process. It guides the development of attitudes and behavioral patterns towards continually transforming participants' health levels and living conditions. The Health Promotion Groups are identified within the context of the National Health System (Sistema Unico de Saúde) as a means of surpassing the biomedical model. It stimulates the development of actions in which the positive aspects of health are emphasized, while at the same time it can serve to more effectively meet the demands for care for the elderly in health systems.

Das Gesunde im Patienten entdecken. Eine salutogenetisch orientierte Untersuchung mit schizophrenen Patienten

Discovering Positive Health in the Schizophrenic Patient: A Salutogenetic-Oriented Study Background: Various psychotherapy approaches have recognized the importance of activating patients’ resources and working with their strengths and skills. A rather new approach in psychiatry consists in considering concepts of health promotion and salutogenesis to understand mentally ill, particularly schizophrenic patients. Empirical studies in this area are scarce. Patients and Methods: The present study aims at the assessment of ‘positive aspects of health’ in schizophrenic outpatients. Within a larger quality of life study, 29 interviews were evaluated in a pilot study, applying qualitative and quantitative methods to assess patients’ individual, social and material resources as well as their ability to cope. In this article some results of the qualitative study (N = 9) for which a special category system was developed will be presented. Results: The patients are not just ‘passive victims’ of their disease. They express the need to be important and useful to others. Furthermore, they have gradually accumulated ‘expert knowledge’ and developed a variety of regulation mechanisms to cope with their disease and daily life requirements. Conclusion: Potential and actually existing health resources of psychiatric patients can be meaningful for diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation – complementary to the traditional paradigm of pathogenesis with its main focus on symptoms and deficits.

Broccoli

Broccoli

Comprehensive Diagnosis: A Conceptual Basis for Future Diagnostic Systems

A discussion of the objectives of diagnosis, participants and architecture leads to the consideration of diagnostic schemas of increasing complexity. Examined first is the conventional case of single-label diagnosis. The case of multiple illness formulation is considered concerning the plurality of mental disorders as well as of general medical disorders. The formulation of a whole clinical condition where contextualized pathology and problems are described is then followed by the consideration of positive aspects of health as well as quality of life. Finally, a comprehensive diagnostic model is reviewed. It integrates a standardized multiaxial formulation (illness, disabilities, contextual factors and quality of life) and an idiographic personalized formulation (culturally informed and contextualized clinical problems, patient’s assets pertinent to care, and expectations of health restoration and promotion as jointly understood by clinician, patient and family). Such integrative diagnostic schemas may offer a richer informational basis for clinical description and care as well as a more effective focus for the surveillance of population health.

Patterns of dental caries and treatment experience in elderly Lithuanians.

The aim of the study was to evaluate patterns of caries experience in a representative sample of Lithuanians, aged 65-74. This cross-sectional study included 301 participants (response rate 54%). Information was obtained from a clinical examination (caries experience, stimulated salivary flow rates and oral hygiene levels) and a questionnaire. The questionnaire comprised questions about oral, general, physical, mental and social health and about background, knowledge, attitudes and lifestyle. The study had a multidimensional approach to negative consequences of disease and positive aspects of health. For bivariate testing, t-test, ANOVA and Spearman's correlation were used. Factor analysis was combined with linear multiple regression for a multivariate study of caries experience patterns. Elderly Lithuanians were found to have lower levels of edentulousness (range 11-15%) than elderly people in other European countries. The mean number of missing teeth was also lower than in any of the neighbouring countries. A comparison of dentate and edentulous groups did not show any major differences. Those who reported that they had general disease had higher levels of oral health maintenance. In dentate elderly, caries experience differed according to place of residence, fluoride content in the drinking water, socioeconomic status, gender, lifestyle, and many other factors. The multivariate approach explained 52%, 61% and 55% of the variation in the number of filled or sound teeth (FS-T), decayed (DT) and missing teeth (MT) respectively. Levels of oral health maintenance and caries experience show substantial variation among elderly Lithuanians, according to many health-related characteristics. These elderly people require appropriate oral care, just as much as people in other population sub-groups.

"Healthometer"--an instrument for self-distributed health screening and prevention in the population.

In the ongoing expansion of medical systems toward prevention and health promotion, primary care is increasingly recognized as a key vehicle and agent. In order to establish a comprehensive health dialogue in the population, there is a need for innovative instruments corresponding to the information and linked media revolution that this shift is a part of. Based upon the experiences of the Department of Preventive Medicine in Malmö, Sweden, a self-mediated, interactive health testing and promotion instrument called "healthometer" has been developed and tested for feasibility. The instrument uses a special variety of a quintile-distributed visual analog scale with the thermometer as reference and allows: (a) easy summation and averaging of single or different aggregates of the test items as a "wellness" profile and score with emphasis upon the positive aspects of health, and (b) recognition against this on the whole favorable background of the weak points motivating further action. The instrument, which can be distributed on paper or electronic medium, supports participation and insight in the initial stages of a directed individual health program for the continuation of which the utilization of professional counsel is stimulated.

Nouveaux concepts en sante mentale

To what extent can one speak to-day of new concepts in the mental health field? There have existed for a long-time (since, for example, the Mental Hygiene Movement and the tendency Preventive Psychiatry in the United States) new programmes for the administration of care which aim at going beyond the 'repair model' (Goffman) of classical psychological medicine, and at developing a 'positive concept' of health (after William A. White in 1930). In the same spirit, psychoanalysis has promoted a dynamic concept of psychic disturbance which transcends the static opposition of health and illness. Finally, the insistence on systematic prevention of risks also follows the tendency to transcend the medical relationship. Thus, the conditions for bringing about, conserving and developing mental health have long ceased to be susceptible to thinking out from the base of clinical psychiatric concepts. These important transformations in the conceptions of mental health do not, however, guarantee their establishment in practice. We have chosen to emphasize here the point of view of the application (or non-application) of 'new concepts' in effective policies, rather dealing only with the theoretical text from which they have emerged, or declarations of intention that proclaim their merits. This article attempts firstly an evaluation of the reform movements that have developed since the end of the Second World War, mainly in the United States and in France with the following question as point of departure: "To what extent have modern mental health policies been innovative in relation to classical psychiatry dominated by a medical conception of mental health, that is to say a model that is "repair-oriented" or curative rather than positive or preventive"? Firstly, the achievements of the Community Health Centres in the United States and the Policy of the Sector (politique de secteur) in France is analysed. In both cases the 'theoretical' programmes of the promoters are compared to that which has been accomplished in fact. What, concretely, has happened to the will to "enlarge the conception of mental health to include concepts that no longer include mental disorder", as proclaimed by Leonard J. Duhl in summing up the spirit of the Community Mental Health Centres and Retardation Act? The article attempts this evaluation on a three-fold level: new theoretical models envisaged, new forms of intervention put into practice and the institutional transformations that have been introduced during the last 30 years.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Some Physical Aspects of Positive Health

Some Physical Aspects of Positive Health

Rising Eighteen in a London Suburb: A Study of Some Aspects of the Life and Health of Young Men

r NHE World Health Organization defines health as a state of complete physical, merltal and social well-being, and not merely the i ,absence of disease or inflrmity. If we accept this deflnition we should study the physical health of young males in terms not only of the presence or absence of pathology such as tuberculosis, but also in terms of their growth, nutrition and physiological adaptability. Their mental health must be studied not only to determine the prevalence of mental defect or neurosis, but also for more positive indications of mental well-being, for example the effectiveness with which the young men use their abilities, their capacity to maintaiIl co-operative human relationships, the degree of their emancipation from the home, their resilience in face of change, and the realism of their outlook. We need to study the social health of young men, not only as shown by absenteeism rates and labour turnover, for instance, or delinquency, or the problem of the unclubbable youth, but we should also inquire into the satisfactions which they find at work and whether they have begun to think of the social responsibilities of mamage, parenthood and citizenship in a democratic society. As we are concerned in this study with eighteer-yearolds who are in a phase of transition and active development, these more positive aspects of health are related to physical, intellectual and emotional maturation. In this investigation we have studied some aspects of the physical, mental and social health of young men. We were interested in the following questions: What is the health of these youths ? What stage have they reached in their growth, physical, mental and social ? How do environmental forces such as family background, educational and vocational opportunities, and social class combine to influence the young men ?