Abstract

BRITO, Annie Mehes Maldonado  and  CAMARGO, Brigido Vizeu. Social representations, health beliefs and behaviors: a comparative study between men and women. Temas psicol. [online]. 2011, vol.19, n.1, pp. 283-303. ISSN 1413-389X.

The present paper intended to relate health social representations, beliefs related to health care with the adoption of healthy behaviors for men and women. A descriptive and comparative study used the data acquirement through questionnaire. The instrument was answered by 638 participants. For data analysis descriptive and relational statistics procedures were employed, also as descendent hierarchical classification and factorial correspondence analysis. An average age for teenagers was 16 years old (DP= 1,04), 43 years old for adults (DP= 9,6) and 66 years old for elderly people (DP= 5,7). The health care behaviors which prevailed for women were the adoption of healthy behaviors. Familiar health behaviors were expressed through prevention. Couples' beliefs for men showed self care in severe cases of health injury, and for women as preventive. The social representation health center for these participants brings a preventive notion related to precaution, meaning that, for females the subjective aspect prevails, with the well-being element, and for males the curative aspect, with elements such as hospital and disease.

Keywords : Social representation; Belief; Health behavior.

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