Sense of Coherence: Notes on Some Challenges for Future Research

Jacek Hochwälder

SAGE Open, 2019, vol. 9, issue 2, 2158244019846687

Abstract: Antonovsky introduced the salutogenic model whose aim is to explain the origins of health and to describe how health can be promoted. Sense of coherence (SOC) is the core concept in the model and is defined as the degree of meaningfulness, comprehensibility, and manageability that people feel in their life. The aim of this article is to bring attention to some topics on SOC that need to be explored in future research. First, SOC and how it is measured are briefly described. Thereafter, there is a brief discussion of the following seven topics: (a) the dimensionality of the SOC scale, (b) SOC as the causal variable, (c) SOC as the outcome variable, (d) general SOC versus domain-specific SOC, (e) the concept of boundary in the measurement of SOC, (f) SOC as a continuous versus a dichotomized or trichotomized variable, and (g) the importance of relating SOC to salutogenic outcome measures. In conclusion, the salutogenic model, with its core concept of SOC, is an excellent guide for research on health and well-being, but there are still some parts of this model that deserve further theoretical and empirical attention.

Keywords: Antonovsky; salutogenic model; sense of coherence; problems; future research (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2158244019846687 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:sagope:v:9:y:2019:i:2:p:2158244019846687

DOI: 10.1177/2158244019846687

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in SAGE Open
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().