Sense of coherence - stability over time and relation to health, disease, and psychosocial changes in a general population: A longitudinal study

Abstract

We found that SOC was only stable for those with initially high levels of SOC. For other people, individual conditions and societal changes influenced their SOC. Further longitudinal studies in normal populations are needed to investigate the stability of SOC scores.

The Salutogenic Model: The Role of Generalized Resistance Resources

“…Antonovsky (1987) hypothesized that SOC develops during childhood and stabilizes during the early adulthood stage. In contrast, other research proposed SOCs changes over an entire lifetime (e.g., Nilsson, Holmgren, Stegmayr, & Westman, 2003;Nilsson, Leppert, Simonsson, & Starrin, 2010). These findings raise several important issues regarding the longitudinal fluctuations as well as stability versus flexibility in individual SOC across the different development phases.…”

Which factors influence the psychological distress among relatives of patients with chronic functional psychoses? An exploratory study in a community mental health care setting

“…The current study used the 13-item version of the Sense of Coherence Scale (SOC) and included the sum score of all items in the analysis (Cronbach's alpha = 0.82) (Antonovsky 1993;Schnyder et al 2000;Schumacher et al 2000;Nilsson et al 2003).…”

DOES TWO-YEAR STABILITY FOR SCALE SCORES OF PSYCHOSOCIAL FACTORS DIFFER BY SOCIOECONOMIC POSITION?1

“…Test-retest correlations have shown a stability ranging from .69 to .78 (1 year), .64 (3 years), .42 to .45 (4 years), .59 to .67 (5 years) to .54 (10 years) (Antonovsky, 1993). The present 2-year coefficient of .72 can also be compared with Swedish data from a 5-year stability study in a general population aged 25-74 years, where Nilsson, Holmgren, Stegmayr and Westman (2003) reported a Pearson correlation coefficient of .57 (p<0.01). For the other scales tested in our study, only short-term based test-retest correlation coefficients have been reported; for self-esteem a coefficient of .85 was reported from a test of 28 students over a 2-week interval (Bowling, 2001) and for depression, correlation coefficients ranged from .51-.59 depending on length of time passed (from 2 weeks up to 8 weeks) (Radloff, 1977).…”

“…Our data correspond well with results from previous studies. For sense of coherence, we noted Cronbach's alpha to .82-.84, while Nilsson et al (2003) reported an alpha of .79 at baseline and .81 at follow-up. In a review of 5 published studies using the SOC 13-instrument, Antonovsky ((1993) reported an average alpha of .82 (range .74-.91).…”