HEALTH-RELATED BEHAVIOR IN HEALTH PROMOTION - UTILIZING THE CONCEPT OF SELF-CARE

The concepts of health promotion and self care have common origins. Both represent new thinking about the roles of the professional and lay sectors in health protection. The two concepts developed quite differently however. The concept of self care did not attain the same level of legitimacy and stability as health promotion, which has evolved from an alternative approach to the dominance of traditional disease prevention into a rapidly developing health field. The emergence of the concept of self care and the reasons for its relative lack of acceptance are discussed. It is concluded that the concept of self care is logically allied with the field of health promotion and serves an important function in optimizing health related behavior.