A Study of Health Behavior through Comparative Analysis of Self-perceived Health Status and Health Examination Results

주관적 건강인식과 건강검진 결과의 비교분석을 통한 건강행위 연구

  • Published : 2001.09.01

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze health behavior by comparing the difference between self-perceived health status and health examination results. The study subjects consist of 7,702 people aged over 20, surveyed by Health Interview survey, Health Examination survey, Dietary Life survey, Health Consciousness and Behavior survey. Data used in the study are drawn from raw data from a 1998 National Health and Nutrition survey. General characteristics variables are sex, age, education level, residential area, marital status, occupation, and living standard while dichotomous variables, ‘not healthy’ and ‘healthy’ are used to measure self-perceived health status. Variables for health examination results are high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, liver diseases, liver inflammation, kidney diseases, normal weight, regular diet, optimum sleeping time(7-8 hours), regular health examination and health behavior practice group. Major findings of the study are as follows: 1) Analysis of self-perceived health status and health behavior by disease: Variables significantly correlated with high self-perceived health status have strong associations with high health behavior practice, which supports the hypothesis that as one has high self-perceived health status, one is more likely to practice health promoting behavior. The results of analysis of health behavior differences by dividing subjects into two categories, ‘cases of illness’ and ‘cases of no illness’ indicate that drinking, sleeping time, health examination are significant variables (p〈0.001, 0.05) whereas smoking, weight control, regular exercise, regular diet are not significant. 2) Analysis of disparity patterns between self-perceived health status and health examination: The hypothesis that health behaviors would be different according to the disparity pattern between self-perceived health status and health examination is supported as a result of χ2 test. Among Type I : Self-perceived health status is high and actual health status is good (no disease) Type II: Self-perceived health status is high and actual health status is poor(have disease) Type III: Self-perceived health status is low and actual health status is good(no disease) Type IN: Self-perceived health status is low and actual health status is poor(have disease) Type I and Type IV show no disparity, Type I shows the highest health promoting behavior whereas Type IV shows the lowest health promoting behavior. Type II, and III, compared to Type I, practise lower health promoting behavior. Multi-logistics regression analysis was conducted to find out the degree of impact on health behavior. Independent variables are general characteristics, self-perceived health status and health examination result and presence of illness, while the dependent variable is health promoting behavior. The analysis of the impact of self-perceived health status on the health promoting behavior shows that smoking, drinking, weight control, regular exercise, health examination practice, and/or regular diet are significantly correlated to self-perceived health status. High self-perceived health status is inversely related to high health promoting behavior. This finding supports the hypothesis that the higher one perceives one's health, the more likely one is to practice health promoting behavior. On the contrary, the presence of illness has little impact on health promoting behavior. 3) Multiple logistics analysis on how disparity patterns between self-perceived health status and health examination affect health behavior: The results of multiple logistics analysis made on health behavior variables compared to the standard variable are as follows: When analyzed on the standard of Type I, smoking is a significant risk factor for the Type IV. In case of drinking, all the patterns show a high probability of relative risk ratio. With regard to weight control, it is a risk factor for Type II while all the patterns show high probability of not practising when analyzed on the standard of type IV. Type III and IV show high probability of not doing regular exercise while Type IV, shows a high probability of not taking appropriate sleeping time. When analyzed on the standard of type IV, all the patterns show a high probability of not taking health examinations. Type III and IV show a high probability of not having regular meals. As for overall health promoting behavior, Type III and IV show a high relative risk ratio. These two groups have low self-perceived health status. It implies that self-perceived health status has significant impact on health promoting behavior. This is also supported by the fact that Type I with high self-perceived health status and no illness shows a high practice rate of health promoting behavior. Types II and III the groups with high disparity between self-perceived health status and health examination results, show a low practice rate of health promoting behavior when compared to Type I. Type IV, that is the group with low self-perceived health status and actual illness, shows the lowest practice of health promoting behavior. It is highly probable that this type proves to be the poorest health group.

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