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

• Main Author: Moharib, Nasser I.
• Published: University of Surrey 1988
• Subjects: 150; Social psychology study
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.380363

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.