Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

In the German-speaking part of Switzerland, health researchers are adopting salutogenic theory with a surprisingly high frequency in multiple disciplines, albeit salutogenesis is almost absent in the public scientific discussion. This chapter presents research activities over the past 20 years, covering all retrievable publications from the German-speaking part of Switzerland. Results show two developments: first, a mainstreaming of salutogenic thinking as reflected in the measurement of the sense of coherence in National Health Surveys and Health Programs, and second, in-depth research on salutogenesis in occupational health as well as in medical and psychotherapeutic research areas.

Aaron Antonovsky developed the salutogenic model during his years of work at Ben Gurion University in Israel. His model and ideas are very influential today in Israel, both in the area of research and in health and educational public policies. This chapter reviews the scientific literature on salutogenesis published in Hebrew between 1983 and 2014. There were 175 titles found that focus on the salutogenic model, most of which were master’s theses and doctoral dissertations in the social sciences. This review focuses on two branches of research which have made a significant contribution to updating salutogenic knowledge and have moved the field forward: research broadening the concept of coherence from the individual level to wider levels of analysis such as the family, the community, and the national level, as well as research focused on sense of coherence amongst children with learning disabilities.

Research on salutogenesis and sense of coherence in Japan started between 1998 and 2001 with translations of Antonovsky’s work and the creation of a Japanese language version of the 29-item seven-point scale and a 13-item short version. These were later developed into a 13-item, five-point scale, the original three-item scale, and a scale for children. Since 2003, as Yamazaki and his colleagues have continued to promote sense of coherence research in Japan, original papers that included sense of coherence and the related terms as keywords have dramatically increased. Approximately 300 papers have been published in the last 11 years. Sixty percent of these studies used sense of coherence as an independent variable, and 20 % as a dependent variable. Seventy-five percent were cross-sectional studies, 10 % follow-up studies, and 8 % qualitative studies. As many as 103 studies were awarded the Japanese government Grant-in-Aid. Fifteen doctoral dissertations in Japan also had these keywords. The research participants were drawn from wide ranging population categories such as the general population, patients, workers, students, the elderly, children, and families. The research themes can be divided into “factors related to the formation and improvement of sense of coherence,” “associations between sense of coherence and health and health behavior,” “stress coping function of sense of coherence,” and “support and improvement strategies for sense of coherence.” For the future, we hope to see research topics such as “investigation of sense of coherence factors and support and improvement strategies,” “investigation of sense of coherence functions, effects, and mechanisms,” “deepening the theoretical foundation of sense of coherence and the salutogenic model,” and “applications of salutogenesis and sense of coherence to new areas.”

Salutogenesis has been an increasingly used theoretical framework for health research in Norway during the last years, with an increase in literature in Norwegian. In spite of this, the majority of research from Norway is published in international English language journals. This paper presents the reports, books, and journal articles in Norwegian journals from 2000 to 2014. It represents a wide area of research in a large variety of settings. The last large work in Norwegian is a textbook on Health Promotion in Municipality Health Services and the Norwegian language version of Hitchhikers Guide to Salutogenesis.

The chapter presents the reception of the theory of salutogenesis in Poland. It deals with several issues. First, it gives the brief history of the first contacts with the main assumptions of the theory of salutogenesis. Second, it describes the growing interest in the concept among researchers that resulted in salutogenesis being included in major textbooks on clinical and health psychology. Third, it characterizes areas of research that were based on the main assumptions of salutogenesis and sense of coherence concepts, and gives examples of relevant studies, mostly related to health, coping with stress, and the work environment. The inclusion of reported studies is based on a search of national and international databases. Finally, the chapter gives a short account of the development of the Polish language version of the sense of coherence questionnaires. The list of references can be used by readers as the starting point for further exploration of salutogenesis literature published in Polish.

The introduction of Aaron Antonovsky’s insights in Portugal, and in other Portuguese-speaking countries like Brazil, was initiated in 1994. The first major piece of research took place between 1997 and 1999, with the validation in Portuguese of the Orientation to Life Questionnaire. From there, several theses, articles, programs, conferences, research grant proposals, and even top level governmental programs, have recognized the relevance of the salutogenic paradigm. Today, several training programs at the National School of Public Health in Lisbon carry the salutogenic blueprint and throughout the country, several faculties in the health sciences include salutogenesis in their curricula.

In the last few years, the influence of salutogenesis has been growing, both in the area of research and in the public health and health promotion strategies and policies, in Spain and in Latin America.

The scientific literature on salutogenesis that has been published in Spanish since 2000 is reviewed, out of which 58 scientific articles, five books, and eight doctoral theses have been identified. The publications focus on health-related professional groups, patient groups, population groups, public health, and studies related to health promotion and education.

The Salutogenesis Spanish Group is a network of professionals who are interested in this subject, who work to exchange experiences and to promote salutogenesis research and development within our contexts.

This chapter describes the background and the development of scholarship on salutogenesis in Swedish. It starts from the time when Antonovsky visited the University of Lund and introduced the salutogenic model of health to the Swedish audience of health scientists. Research on the sense of coherence construct is extensive in English, so just describing articles and theses published in Swedish do not give a fair picture of the Swedish research. Therefore, this chapter begins with a summary of the total number of sense of coherence studies in the period 1983–2013 and thereafter shows some trends in research in Swedish, ending up in current research. The chapter does not claim to be a systematic literature review of Swedish research on salutogenesis and the core concept of the sense of coherence; instead, it intends to be a sketch of Swedish salutogenesis research, showing some steps in the development from the past to the current situation.

The last chapter in the book is formed as a discussion among the editors of the future of salutogenesis. Four fundamental questions about the development of the salutogenic orientation and basic ideas are discussed. The questions are: