THE CORRELATION BETWEEN ORTHOREXIA NERVOSA AND SOCIAL MEDIA USE IN NURSING STUDENTS

Abstract

This cross-sectional and descriptive study investigated the correlation between orthorexia nervosa and social media use in nursing students. The study sample consists of 339 students who volunteered to participate in the research. Data were collected using the Sociodemographic Data Form, the Social Media Use Integration Scale (SMUIS), and the ORTO-11 scale. The mean ORTO-11 scale score of the nursing students was 27.98 ± 4.92, and 30.38% were under 25 points. A significant negative relationship was found between the ORTO-11 scores and the SMUIS total scores (r = -0.136, p=0.01), the Integration into Social Routines sub-dimension (r = -0.138, p=0.01), and the duration of social media use (r = -0.11, p = 0.04). It was found that there was no difference between orthorexia tendencies according to the type of social media tools used by the students, but the orthorexia nervosa tendency increased as the duration of social media use increased. Curriculum studies can be recommended so that nursing faculty students can reach accurate information about the effects of social media and healthy nutrition.