Relationship between health locus of control and belief in the relevance of lifestyle to health.
The relationship between the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control (MHLC scales) and other beliefs about health behavior were explored in a sample of working-class women living in South Wales, U.K. Contrary to our original hypothesis, those who scored higher on an index measuring salience of lifestyle (i.e., showed awareness that day-to-day behavior influences health status) were not significantly more likely to score high on the internal control scale or low on the belief in chance scale; however, they were significantly less likely to believe that "powerful others" controlled their health. Evidence is presented for the construct validity of the Index of Salience, and the reasons for the low correlations found are discussed. Because the internal HLC scale, in particular, fails to distinguish between health maintenance and illness behavior and between individual behavior and behaviors involving professionals, the value of the MHLC scales in predicting the specific forms that preventive health behavior will take is weakened.
D001294:Attitude to Health; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D008019:Life Style; D014852:Wales