Self-care components of lifestyles: the importance of gender, attitudes and the social situation.

Self-care practices of individuals are health related elements of lifestyles. In order to understand the influences that shape and maintain the self-care patterns of behaviour that determine health and functional ability, research frameworks for study of the social situations in which people live and the levels of influence among variables are needed. This paper reports on findings from an investigation of self-care practices in a population sample of persons over 45 yr of age in an attempt to study self-care in a lifestyle framework. The findings show the importance of examining patterns of behaviour rather than exclusive focus on the magnitude of differences in discrete behaviours. Gender was the major independent influence on patterns of health maintenance behaviour while social network variables assumed major importance for self-care responses to illness.