Editorial: Character, responsibility, and well-being: influences on mental health and constructive behavior patterns

The Impact of Negative Moral Character on Health and the Role of Spirituality: A Narrative Literature Review

Although negative moral character is highly prevalent, it is not included in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). Along with the modification of WHO ICD-11, spirituality should be acknowledged for its potetnial role in the prevention of negative moral traits. This study aimed to explore the effects of negative moral character on health and determine the role of spirituality in improving negative moral traits. This narrative literature review was conducted from 2020 to 2023 in Kabul, Afghanistan. The articles were obtained from the Web of Science, PubMed, and Google Scholar databases. As demonstrated in this narrative literature review, most of the relevant experimental and observational studies have found that negative moral character can have significant negative impact on overall health and well-being. Many studies have established the positive role of spirituality in improving negative moral character. These studies concluded that facilities must be available within schools, universities, and communities for everyone to gain knowledge of spirituality and improve their negative moral character. Considering the adverse impacts of negative moral character on health, the current study proposes the addition of moral disorder to the WHO International Classification of Diseases. According to this literature review, spirituality will improve negative moral character and strengthen excellent moral traits.

Identification of health behaviour clusters among people at high risk of stroke: A latent class profile analysis

AIMS

To identify the possible latent classes of health behaviour reported by people at high risk of stroke and to explore the predictors of these different classes of health behaviour.

DESIGN

A cross-sectional survey study.

METHODS

A stratified cluster random sampling method was used to collect data from 2,500 individuals at high risk of stroke who were from Henan Province, China, from January 2018-January 2019. A latent class profile analysis was used to identify the health behaviour clusters and multinomial logistic regression was used to determine which factors predicted the emergent latent classes of health behaviour.

RESULTS

High-risk individuals (N = 2,236) at high risk of stroke replied to the survey (89.44% response rate). Model fit indices (AIC = 257,509.610, BIC = 260,228.733, Entropy = 0.956) supported a three-class model of health behaviours. The latent classes were Class 1 (a good level of adaptive health behaviour, 31%, N = 693), Class 2 (a moderate level of adaptive health behaviour, 36%, N = 805) and Class 3 (a poor level of adaptive health behaviour, 33%, N = 738); Based on physical and belief, behaviour and clinical profiles, the three classes were further labelled self-realization deficiency subgroup, social contact anxiety subgroup and health responsibility absence subgroup respectively. Older age, male gender, no spouse, lower education and household income were risk factors associated with good health behaviour. After controlling these socio-demographic variables, high levels of health-related knowledge and attitude were the main positive predictors of health behaviour.

CONCLUSIONS

This study has identified three different latent classes of health behaviour and their predictive factors in people at high risk of stroke in the Chinese setting.

IMPACT

This study has significance for the promotion of adaptive health behaviour in individuals at high risk of stroke. It has allowed the identification of specific clusters of health behaviour that vary in terms of their adaptiveness and forms the basis for the development of a targeted intervention to promote health behaviour for each different subgroup.