Conversational notions of health, mental health and well being

Abstract

This paper aimsto clarify whether the concepts of Health, Mental Health and Wellbeing overlap or if there should be a proper definition for each one of them. Taking advantage of previous studies with students from two Polytechnical Institutes, conversational notions were used to form a questionnaire around the three topics above. The cooccurrences in the responses of the 43 subjects indicate that the central concept is Wellbeing, and that Health differs from Mental Health because it is closer to positive and negative ways of coping.

Este documento pretende aclarar si los conceptos de Salud, Salud Mental y Bienestar se solapan o si debe existir una definición propia para cada uno de ellos. Aprovechando estudios previos con estudiantes de dos Institutos Politécnicos, se utilizaron nociones conversacionales para formar un cuestionario en torno a los tres temas anteriores. Las coocurrencias en las respuestas de los 43 sujetos indican que el concepto central es el Bienestar, y que la Salud se diferencia de la Salud Mental porque se acerca más a las formas positivas y negativas de afrontamiento.