الفهرس 
AcknowledgementOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Health locus of control simply refers to a person’s beliefs about their ability to exert control over health behavior and outcomes. People with an external locus of control orientation tend to believe that what happens is in the hands of outside forces such as chance, f-ate, luck or powerful others whereas those with internal locus of control believe that events are more contingent on their own behavior. There is evidence that locus of control construct is relevant to the prediction and explanation of health behaviors and sick-role behaviors. In general, people with stronger internal beliefs are more likely than those with external orientation to know more about health and to engage ~ positive preventive and sick-role behaviors. Moreover, health educators might utilize the locus of control construct in program evaluation, training internali ty, or tailoring programs for individuals holding different sets of beliefs. The present study was designed to study beliefs about health locus of control and- its relation to health behaviors of a group of school children and their parents in Alexandria. The study was carried out in public and private schools ~ the middle educational zone in Alexandria. Data were collected from 870 students from the 4ili primary grade through the third secondary grade and 362 of their parents. The tools used were student’s self-administered questionnaire and parents’ self-administered questionnaire. ~ese tools were developed to obtain the following data: socioeconomic data, locus of control, health value, self esteem, and preventive health behaviors. The results obtained in this study could be summarized as follows: The ages of students ranged from 9 to 19 years. About two-thirds of the st