The Health Script: Its Relationship to Illness in a College Population

Abstract

The authors developed the Health Script Questionnaire, a 13-item instrument, and administered it, in the fall of 1975, to 56 young adults. The 56 were part of a random sample of college students reporting multiple recent life change. Three TA therapists examined audio-tapes and transcriptions of the responses without further information about the respondents and made predictions concerning the health of each of the 56 during the upcoming ten months based on the content and affect of the responses. The health of the 56 was checked by interview during the time period. The authors studied the association between script characteristics, i.e., either positive (healthy) or negative (unhealthy) and actual health at the end of the period. The association was statistically significant, p = .0004.

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Notes on contributors

Martin B. Marx

Martin B. Marx, PhD, Professor, Department of Community Mediane and Director, Research Design/Biostatistics Laboratory, University of Kentucky College of Medicine and Albert B. Chandler Medical Center, Lexington, Kentucky.

Graham Barnes

Graham Barnes, TM, is on sabbatical from faculty of Southeast Institute. Adjunct lecturer Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Grant W. Somes

Grant W. Somes, Assistant Professor, Department of Community Medicine and biostatistician, Research Design/Biostatistics Laboratory, University of Kentucky College of Medicine, Lexington, Kentucky.

Thomas F. Garrity

Thomas F. Garrity, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Behavioral Science, University of Kentucky College of Medicine, Lexington, Kentucky.