Scholarly record

POSSIBILITIES IN EMERGING ADULTSВ’ HEALTH PROMOTION: THE ROLES OF WELL-BEING AND SELF-COMPASSION IN HEALTH BEHAVIOUR

E. Lobanov-Budai, K. Lampek

Abstract

Background: Nowadays young people have to take longer way to adulthood. They try to get a degree, a good job and get married. They can reach the traditional adult roles minimum 5 years later than 30 years ago. This new term is called “emerging adulthood” which is between the adolescence and young adulthood. Emerging adulthood is characterized by freedom, unsettled life, freedom to discoveries and from consequences, low level of risk perception and risky health behaviour. Therefore, health promotion has to work with this new group. One way can be in this health care work trying to develop the intrapersonal factors, for example the well-being and the healthy attitude towards the self (self-compassion). Methods: The aim of the study is to examine the emerging adults’ health behaviour characteristics and the connections between them and the intrapersonal factors like well-being and self-compassion. The sample is 710 persons (219 men, 491 women). The average age is 22.21 years (stand. dev.: 2.91). The used measures: self-created health behaviour questionnaire, WHO Well-Being (WBI-5) and Self-Compassion (SCS) tests in Hungarian versions. The analysis of the data was completed with IBM SPSS 22 software. Results: The half part of the sample (43.1%) think that they have healthy eating habits. The oral hygiene is not ideal; only 44% wash their teeth 2 or 3 times a day. 45.8% do physical exercise regularly. Who smoke regularly is quite few (12.5%), who drink alcohol more times a week is 30.1%. The average of the sexual partners is 4.45 (min: 0, max: 100, stand. dev.:7.59). The half of the sample (51.2%) has sexual relationship more times a week. 13.5% have never had sexual connection. The healthier someone reports himself, the more characteristic are healthy eating habits and physical exercise of him. This relation is true in reverse for smokers and binge drinkers. We can say that the WBI total points have significant positive connection with the self-reported health status, healthy eating, and negative connection with hand-made tobacco use. The SCS total points show negative connection with the self-reported health status and the number of the sexual partners. Significantly the e-cigarette users had higher SCS total points. If we consider the dimensions of the SCS – those who have higher level of “isolation” and “self-criticism” they have worse health status and less healthy eating habits. Whereas those who have higher level of “mindfulness” and “self-kindness” they have better values in these cases. Conclusions: We can say that the preventive health behaviour of this emerging adulthood sample is moderate. Certain components of health behaviour have significant connections with well-being and self-compassion. The higher level of well-being and healthy attitude towards the self can promote healthy lifestyles.

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