12 NERP 2019;9(1):12-8 Healthy Behaviour and Psychological Well-Being in Young Adult Belarusian Men: How Much the Realization of Personal Goals in Life Matters? Marina Surmach Grodno State Medical University, Belarus Key Words: young male, healthy behavior, psychological well-being, life goals, social inequality, Belarus. Summary. Background. Since the braking down from the Soviet Union, there has been an un- natural population decrease in Belarus. At present, life expectancy of men is 10–12 years lower than in women. The aim of this study was to investigate the healthy behaviour and psychological well-being of young adult Belarusian men in association with the subjective estimation of the possibility to realise personal goals in life. Methods. An anonymous cross-sectional survey design was employed. The study was conducted in 2016 with a randomised sample of men aged 18–30 (n = 895). The sample was representative of the national distribution of adult men (18–30 years) by place of residence. The methods of descrip- tive statistics, criterion χ² and the Mann-Whitney criterion were used for data analysis. Results. The majority of young adult men were brought up in full families, in an atmosphere of love and understanding or respect and benevolence. Despite these, more that 60% of the respondents ever experienced depressive mood, and about 17% did not deny suicidal thoughts. The unhealthy behaviour, low psychological well-being and the smallest proportion (57.7%) of positive estimation of the possibility to realise life goals were more prevalent among rural male inhabitants. Respondents who reported the most favourable behaviour in relation to their own health were of average age, having higher education, officially married, mostly urban, raised more frequently in a full parental family, and in an atmosphere of love and understanding. These young adult Belarusian men also assessed better their personal psychological health and were more positive towards the possibilities to realise personal life goals. Conclusions. The social portrait of a man with the best characteristics of health saving is of special interest: such a man is an implementer and bearer of the culture of vital behaviour, and it is precisely on him that social marketing programmes aimed at formation of a healthy lifestyle among young people should be oriented. Considering the fact that health, family, love and children hold the first positions among the life values of young men, there is a potential for development of social culture of health saving. Background than the presence or absence of physical defects and Population health is the most important econom- diseases (1). ic and social resource of the state. Health is a com- Social usefulness, in turn, depends on the so- plex concept, a phenomenon that comprises many cial resource, or social capital, formed by many fac- components: physical, mental, social and spiritual. tors: social origin, primary socialisation, age, health More than half of the total contribution to health is status, education, qualifications, foreign language made by behaviour-regulated factors of a lifestyle. proficiency, material well-being, gender, ethno- At the same time, the social environment in which cultural, religious affiliation and others (2). The level a person is born, grows up and creates his/her own of education is also significant for health saving (3). family, also shapes the way of life and health be- For the decades of the 19th century, Belarus was a haviour. In modern society, it becomes obvious that part of a large comparatively stable state – the Union social usefulness, the demand for the individual by of Soviet Socialistic Republics (USSR). Since gain- the society and his/her adaptation in the social en- ing independence, the country has developed an in- vironment are more significant in terms of health dependent policy with adherence to specific social principles. From early nineties until mid-2010, the Correspondence to Surmach Marina, Grodno State Medical population health status in the post-Soviet countries University, Gorkogo str. 80, Grodno, 230009, Belarus. decreased, mostly because of social and economic E-mail: [email protected] inequality (4). NERP 2019;9(1) Healthy Behaviour and Psychological Well-Being in Young Adult Belarusian Men 13 The social poverty that arose during political and Methods economic reforms had the greatest negative im- Design and Sample. A study was conducted in pact on the population’s health, i.e., the birth rate, 2016 using a cross-sectional survey design. A ran- physical development and health of children (5). domly selected sample consisted of male respon- Alongside with low material wellbeing, psychologi- dents, who expressed their voluntary consent to par- cal burden and social insecurity influenced the in- ticipate in the study. The inclusion criteria were age crease in prevalence of chronic non-infectious dis- and gender. Adult men of 18–30 years participated eases and higher mortality among the population of in a study. When selecting the sample, the principle productive age. According to Velitchkovskiy, social of representativeness of the general country popula- stress was the main cause of decreasing medical and tion of adult men in relation to geographical and demographic situation as it primarily affected the urban/rural distribution was taken into account. employable population; and the specific outcome of Participants and Study Instrument. In total, 895 that stress was the loss of effective labor motivation, adult male respondents filled in the anonymous i.e., the opportunity to ensure a worthy personal life survey with 41 questions divided into three blocks: and one’s family by honest work (5). (1) the social status of a respondent; (2) the family In Belarus, mainly the budgetary financing sys- situation and childhood; (3) the opinions, attitudes tem is operating today in the health care sector with and behaviour of respondents in the field of health the main principle of equal distribution and acces- and adherence to unhealthy habits. Some questions sibility of service for all citizens. The country guar- included the possibility of choosing several answers, antees state funded secondary and higher education while several questions were open-ended. The re- for all Belarusian citizens. The impoverishment of sponse rate was 95.0%. The survey tool was devel- the population and social inequality led to unde- oped by authors in relation to scientific literature sirable outcomes, i.e., for over 20 years, there has and professional experience. The survey tool was been an unnatural population decline because of piloted before the main study (n = 40). low birth rate, the average life expectancy of men Study Organisation. The survey was distributed has been 10–12 years below that of women, and the to the respondents in an out-patient and in-patient most vulnerable risk group for early death has been clinic by medical students of the 5th year of study, represented by men who live in village. Belarus fac- when they were in clinical placement. Preliminary es a deterioration in the population health and an instructions to students on data collection were pro- imbalance in the reproduction processes: the pre- vided by principal investigators. Respondents vis- dominance of mortality over births, the high mor- ited the out-patient clinic for an annual check-up or tality of working-age men, a significant increase in specific medical examination (to start employment, the cases of cardio-vascular diseases and neoplasms to enter college or university, for passing the driver’s (6). In the first decades after independence, there license, etc.). was also a remarkable increase in the incidence Statistical Analysis. Methods of descriptive sta- of alcoholism and drug addiction (7). In Belarus, tistics, criterion χ2 and the Mann-Whitney criterion similarly to neighbouring Russia, men were most were used for statistical analysis of the survey data, vulnerable to the consequences of the social and by STATISTICA 10.0. economic crisis (8). Currently the demographic situation in Belarus Results has slowly stabilised, and the indicators of the The majority of the respondents (91.4%) were average life expectancy have begun to grow slightly ethnical Belarusians. The respondents estimated (9). At the same time, the age structure of the their financial situation as moderate (mean ± SE, population, deformed by depopulation processes 6.26 ± 0.057) and about 40% of the respondents that have occurred since 1992, is unfavourable considered it to be below the average (4–5 points on from the point of demographic forecast. The a 10-point scale). Other socio-demographic charac- proportion of adolescents who will enter the active teristics of the sample are presented in Table 1. reproductive age in the coming years is lower than Parents’ Family Characteristics. The results re- what is needed to support simple reproduction vealed that 80.0% of the study participants were processes. brought up in a full family, in an atmosphere of love With this study, we aim to determine the asso- and understanding (47.8%) or respect and benevo- ciation of young adult Belarusian men’s healthy be- lence (one in four). A little more than a quarter of haviour with their subjective estimation of goals in young adult men indicated other relationships in life realisation. Additionally, we aim to describe the their parents’ families, less favourable from the so- group of men with the most preferable characteris- cio-psychological point of view, or other conditions tics of healthy behaviour. of upbringing in childhood (Table 2). The presence NERP 2019;9(1) 14 Marina Surmach Table 1. Socio-demographic Characteristics of mental illness in one of the close relatives or fam- of the Sample ily members was noted by 4.0% of the respondents. Characteristics The financial situation of the parents’ family on a Age (mean ± SE; Moda) 23.36 ± 0.09; 10-point scale was assessed by 6.7 ± 0.5 points (data 26 not present).