Abstract
Health-promoting behaviors help prevent chronic illness. Health-promoting behaviors of nursing students can affect not only their own health, but also the health of their future patients, for whom they can act as role models. Nursing students should participate in health-promoting behaviors; however, nursing students often have unhealthy behaviors. This study aimed to investigate the factors affecting health-promoting behaviors in nursing students. A descriptive, self-report survey of 304 nursing students from three universities in South Korea was conducted. Subjects’ general characteristics, health perceptions, health concerns, and health-promoting behaviors were collected. Of the total participants, 90.1% were female and the mean age was 20.4 years. The mean score for health-promoting behaviors was 2.47, higher than the midpoint. The mean for the subscale of physical activity among health-promoting behaviors was the lowest. The main factors affecting health-promoting behaviors were gender, health perceptions, health concern, and time per week spent searching online for health-related information. The main factors affecting physical activity were gender, health concern, and time per week spent searching online for health-related information. Based on the study findings, it is recommended that a program to empower nursing students to perform health-promoting behaviors be incorporated into the nursing education curriculum with regard to unique needs based on gender. Specifically, it would be effective to develop programs that are easily accessible via the Internet.
Highlights
A health-promoting lifestyle refers to self-directed behaviors that can help prevent chronic illness and lead to practicing health-promoting behaviors [1]
Based on the study findings, it is recommended that a program to empower nursing students to perform health-promoting behaviors be incorporated into the nursing education curriculum with regard to unique needs based on gender
The mean score for health-promoting behaviors was a level higher than the midpoint, and the mean of physical activity was lowest among the subdomains of health-promoting behaviors
Summary
A health-promoting lifestyle refers to self-directed behaviors that can help prevent chronic illness and lead to practicing health-promoting behaviors [1]. Nursing students have responsibilities as role models to provide clients with health promotion advice, and should understand the significance of their own health-promoting behaviors as role models of public health [4,5]. In nursing education, nursing students’ understanding and knowledge about health promotion are expected to deepen according to the development of a nursing curriculum [4]. Both nurses and pre-registered nurses have unhealthy lifestyles including poor nutrition, smoking, alcohol consumption, and physical inactivity [6,7]. As future healthcare professionals, nursing students play an important role in public health for others, in addition
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