Health beliefs, health behaviours, health status, and coping among Orthodox, Conservative, and Secular Jews.

摘要

Helman (1990) suggested that a person's culture is an important influence on one's beliefs regarding health, illness, and healing. Judaism is a culture that highly values health; this high health value transcends from the Judaic law which states that all life must be preserved. However, there are individual and group differences, such that different Jews will follow the laws of the Torah to varying degrees. The purpose of the present study was to investigate differences that exist between Orthodox, Conservative, and Secular Jews in terms of health value, health beliefs, health behaviours, coping with illness, and mental and physical health status. Participants included 248 Jewish students from the Montreal area, aged 16-35 years who were members of the Hillel Organization or who were staff members in Jewish summer camps. There were 63 Orthodox participants, 116 Conservative participants, and 69 Secular participants. Participants completed a set of questionnaires during group meetings. 3 x 2 (Religiosity x Gender) ANOVAs were conducted on the psychological variables. As expected, Orthodox Jews had higher health value than Conservative and Secular Jews, were more likely to engage in healthy behaviours, particularly those surrounding substance use, than Conservative and Secular Jews, had greater beliefs in the role of divine intervention in recovery from illness, and reported better physical, but not better mental health status than Conservative and Secular Jews. Stepwise multiple regression analyses predicting Physical and Mental Health Status were also conducted in order to determine the patterns of variables that predicted both types of health status. Implications of these findings for health care professionals are discussed.