Reacción a "Reaction: Study links procrastination to health problems in university students"

Procrastination, the tendency to delay actions despite the fact that we will be worse off as a result, is associated with a multitude of health problems. It is understood to occur because this tendency to procrastinate involves higher levels of stress, poorer health care and a delay in seeking health care. However, so far many of these studies have assessed co-occurrence of events, not established causal relationships. That is one of the great values of this article: a longitudinal study in which the different variables of interest are assessed multiple times.  

Hardly any study provides a complete answer to a research question. This is no exception. There are different elements that raise doubts about the interpretation of the results:  

1.- We cannot know to what extent the results are specific to the time at which the data were collected. During data collection, the covid-19 pandemic started. This was, in research terms, a good thing, but also a problem. A good thing because, in general, researchers in these fields want to analyse what causes change and the pandemic generated a lot of change; a problem because we do not know whether the effects present during these exceptional moments can be generalised to less convulsive times.  

2.- The elements into which something as broad as personality is to be summarised depend on how closely one brings the research lens to people. If one wants a general overview, a consolidated model states that we can characterise personality along five broad dimensions. One of them is conscientiousness. Procrastination is to a large extent the inverse of responsibility. Thus, the question remains whether it is necessary to talk about a more concrete, more detailed trait - such as procrastination - when we could talk at a more general level - with responsibility. Research on the relationship between personality and health is extensive, so the novelty and contribution of this study may be diluted.  

The question remains as to what extent the scale for measuring procrastination (certainly one of the standard scales in the field) adequately covers the content to be assessed. One of the items on this scale is: "I am usually late in starting the work I have to do". The definition offered in the article includes as a core element of procrastination the willfulness of the delay. From my point of view, it is easy to imagine people who, due to various life circumstances, live almost constantly overwhelmed by demands, which would lead them to claim that they undertake tasks later than they should (apparent procrastination), but there is no voluntariness there (this is outside the definition).