Health Promoting Behaviors among University Students: A Case-Sectional Study of Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences

Abstract

Background The health promoting behaviors determine the health status in the present and future. The medical students, as developers and providers of professional care, play a key role in the promotion of health. Hence, determining the health promoting behaviors among them is of the essence. The present study aimed to investigate the health promoting behaviors among the students at Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah city, Iran. Materials and Methods This descriptive, analytical and cross-sectional study was conducted in 2014-2015 on a sample of 380 students majoring at Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences. To collect the required data, an instrument comprising the demographic questions and health-promoting lifestyle profile II questionnaire by Walker et al. (1987) was used. Data were analyzed using The IBM SPSS Statistics Software version 21.0. Results The mean age of students were 20.07± 2.04 years old. In addition, of the total of 351 subjects of the present study, 134 students (39%) were male and 217 (61%) were female, and in terms of marital status, 330 of the participants (94%) were single. Further, the majority of students were studying doing BSc degrees (230 students or 65.5%), and 52.7% were residing in dormitories. The status of health promoting behaviors was average. In addition, the highest and lowest scores related to the spiritual growth (3.24±0.59) and physical activities (2.25±0.641), respectively. Conclusion The results of the present study revealed that the status of the students’ health promoting behaviors at Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences was average. Therefore, more accurate planning is vital to improve the status of the students’ health promoting behaviors.