Association of Health Locus of Control with Outcome of Yoga and Allied Therapies

Description

Sachin Kumar Sharma¹, Ankur Kumara², Acharya Balkrishna³, and Shirley Telles⁴) Patanjali Research Foundation, Haridwar, Uttarakhand^1,2,4 and Patanjali Research Foundation, Haridwar, Uttarakhand, University of Patanjali, Haridwar, Uttarakhand³)

An internal locus of health control (i-HLOC; i.e., an individual’s beliefs that they can influence their own health) is related to favorable health behaviours. In contrast, an external locus of health control (e-HLOC; i.e., beliefs that health is controlled by external factors) often results in less favourable health behaviours. The present study (i) comparedH-LOCin yoga-experienced versus patients with no prior yoga experience, and (ii) determined the association between H-LOCandoutcomes of YAT in patients with chronic diseases. The study had two parts. Part one included138 patients (69 had prior yoga experience (YE), while 69 were yoga naïve (YN)). Part two included 105 patients with prioryoga experience. All patients completed the H-LOC scale. Patients in part 2 also completed (i)Physical Health Questionnaire (PHQ) (Schat, Kelloway, & Desmarais, 2005) (before & after one week of YAT) and (ii) Global Perceived Effect Scale (Kamper, Ostelo, Knol, Maher, de Vet, & Hancock, 2010) (after one week of YAT). Data were analyzed using regression analyses for both parts. The yoga group had significantly lower scores in i-HLOC and higher scores in e-HLOC compared to yoga naïve group (p<0.05, based on t values of the least squares linear regression analyses).The e-HLOC was associated with the changes in digestion scores of PHQ scale (B=0.26, p=0.03) and total PHQ (B=0.48 & p=0.03). Both i-HLOC and e-HLOC were higher in the YE compared to YN. In YE participants alone, lower e-HLOC was associated with greater improvement in digestion and total PHQ.