Sense of coherence - a human endeavour.

Aaron Antonovsky who has formulated the concept, more than 10 years ago, was interested in Saluatogenetic factors that protected human beeings in high stress situations. In this article we discuss several questions conserning the concept and measurement of Sense Of Coherence (SOC). SOC as a questionary is applayad in several countries with expected results. The different form SOC-29 and SOC-13 are quite equal and both have good reliability and validity. Sense of coherence seems stable in grown up humans but are sensitive to major stress situations as psychiatric illnesses. We can also show that SOC charges probably as a result of treatment. The concept has been evaluated in a number of studies, but still there are a number of remaning questions such as the longitudinell development of SOC and if SOC measured with the questionary is a protective factor in longitudinal studies.