The Relationship Between Mental Health And Physical Health

The relationship between mental health and physical health is apparent in human beings. From previous studies, 75% of Australians experience chronic illness and approximately 50% will combat depression. Depression increases the chance of chronic illness and vice versa. Also, lifestyle effects the phenomenon of the relationship between chronic illness and depression. Chronic illness, such as type 2 diabetes, associated with depression has a poor prognosis. Certain lifestyle behaviors such as poor diet, an inactivity cause type 2 diabetes and add to the symptoms of depression (Di Benedetto et al., 2014).
Low coping resources correlate with the increase in depressive symptoms in cardiac patients. Coping is the way by which someone handles stressful events such as a chronic illness. In the midst of stressful times, coping factors such as cognitive coping, social copping, physical coping, and …show more content…
The correlations between depression, coping resources, and exercise with mental and physical health ranged but the strongest correlation was between depression and cognitive coping resources. However, smoking status and depression did not correlate. Similar, there was a low correlation between diet and physical status. High levels of depression predicted low levels of physical and mental health after controlling the effect of coping resources. Subsequently, higher levels of coping identified with higher levels of mental health. Furthermore, coping had an ambiguous effect through depression on physical and mental health. Depression mediated the effect of coping on mental and physical health. Additionally, higher levels of coping concluded lower levels of depression and higher levels of exercise were related to higher levels of physical coping. In conclusion, results showed that depression had a stronger effect on mental and physical health than coping (Di Benedetto et al.,