Threat to Health or Exuberant Well-Being: Which Best Explains Wellness Behavior?

• Main Author: Murrow, Jimmie L. (Jimmie Lorraine)
• Other Authors: Welch, Joe Lloyd
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: University of North Texas 1996
• Subjects: health; wellness behavior; physical exercise; stress management; nutrition; health responsibility; social support; Health behavior > United States.
• Online Access: https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc279152/

Because of the high and rapidly increasing cost of health care, wellness has become a significant issue for both health care practitioners and the general public. This research examines the issue of wellness and seeks to develop a model that identifies the factors that are most significant in explaining why people engage in wellness activities. A questionnaire was mailed to a sample (n = 499) randomly selected from the general population of the United States. Predictor variables are the demographic variables of age, income, education and gender together with the cognitive variables of self-actualization, benefits of wellness behavior, health locus of control and threat to health. Dependent variables are the health-seeking behaviors of exercise, stress management, nutrition, health responsibility and social support. Canonical correlation, t-tests, regression and analysis of variance are used to analyze the data. Chapter one presents two existing health models. The first presents prevention or threat to health and the second proposes self-actualization as motivating wellness behavior. The research model combines the two models. Chapter two presents relevant studies in the literature regarding use of multivariate models in consumer behavior, dimensions of wellness and empirical findings of wellness-related research. Chapter three presents the research hypotheses, research design and techniques of analysis. Chapter four presents analysis of the data and results of statistical tests. Conclusions and limitations of the research are discussed in chapter five along with recommendations for further research. The study finds threat to health as the strongest driver of wellness behavior followed closely by self-actualization thus supporting the study model. Results indicate that older persons and females perform more wellness behaviors than do younger individuals and males. Two 3-way interactions were found: (1) Income, age and marital status; (2) Education, age and marital status. Internal locus of control was not found to influence wellness behavior.