Perceived health and signature strengths in diseased and non diseased respondents

Abstract

The present investigation aimed to study Perceived Health and Character Strengths of non diseased and diseased (arthritis and diabetic) respondents in order to identify those strengths which help in health maintenance and coping with chronic diseases. A three independent group design (non diseased: 100; arthritis: 100; diabetic:100) was used. Respondents of non diseased group were categorized into two groups (healthy/ unhealthy) while the diseased respondents were categorized into three groups for each disease on the basis of prognosis (low, moderate, high).Values in Action inventory and P.G.I. Health Questionnaire N-1 were administered to the respondents. Significance of difference between the mean health scores were analyzed by t-test/ ANOVA. Signature Strengths of each group were computed. Results indicated that perceived physical health varied significantly between the non diseased and diseased groups as well as the healthy/ unhealthy subgroups while it was invariant across the prognosis groups. Psychological health varied significantly only between the healthy/ unhealthy groups. Comparison of Signature Strengths revealed that self regulation was an important contributor to health while spirituality, forgiveness and gratitude lead to better prognosis. Thus, it appears that disease or nature of prognosis does not have an impact on perceived psychological health and character strengths of transcendence play a major role in prognosis.