Suchergebnisse

The relationship between psychosomatic symptoms and mental well-being among unemployed (N = 132) and employed (N = 187) personnel of two similar wood-processing factories was studied. Mental well-being was measured by means of the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-score) and the 13-item Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-score). The 13-item questionnaire assessing psychosomatic symptoms was used (PS-score). The 33 and 66 percentiles (tertiles) were formed on the basis of PS-score of the two groups separately. The highest PS-score percentile was compared with the combined first and second percentile. Higher PS-score implied impaired mental well-being especially in the unemployed but also in the control group. Insufficient social support and uncertainty about the future was associated with highest PS-score in the study group but not in the control group. High PS-score was associated with subjective mental problems in both groups. Impaired health and PS-score were associated in both groups. Our results suggest that unemployment is a powerful external stress factor and that psychosomatic symptoms were associated with impaired mental well-being.

The usefulness of the application of the psychodynamic frame of reference in person- to-person health education is examined in the presert study. The health educator's proper understanding of his client through an integrative use of his own cognitive and emotional responses to the client is first discussed. Depending on the level of maturity of their personalities, and on the nature of their formative relations, the clients will develop different modes of interaction in their relationships with the health educator. Learning to adequately recognize and meet clients showing different interac tional modes is considered to substantially increase the prospects of the health educator helping his clients to accomplish a change in health behaviour. Four levels of interaction and their proper encountering are described and discussed. It is concluded that health education and individual health educators would benefit from an increased familiarity with, and use of, the psychodynamic body of knowledge.