Abstract
Health responsibility means that individuals fulfill their duties to maintain their physical, mental, and social well-being. Age, gender, marital status, educational level, income level, smoking and using alcohol, food habits, culture, and ethnic origin affect their behaviors promoting, protecting and preventing their own health. Additionally, factors associated with personal health responsibility include government policies, socio-cultural factors, health literacy, self-care, self-management, health-seeking behavior, and non-governmental organizations.
The protection of health and the self-management of chronic disease can be increased by increasing personal health responsibility. The cost of numerous diseases including cancer can be decreased. Individuals, non-governmental organizations, and policy makers have a number of duties for raising awareness about the health-seeking behavior and health literacy, which are affected by the personal features of individuals. Purpose of this review is to attract attention to the importance of personal health responsibility in the development of health behavior and to discuss how this responsibility could be developed in individuals.

Key words: Self management, self care, self efficacy, health responsibility

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Article Language: Turkish English