Study of Health-promotion behaviors among university of medical science students

Background: Health promoting activities and a healthy lifestyle are major strategies to preserve health. Regarding the importance of health in young people, health promotion in society and also lack of related studies in Iran, this study was designed to determine the performance of the health-enhancing behaviors in medical university students and its effective factors.

Materials and Method: This study was a cross-sectional-descriptive survey assessing health-promoting lifestyle among students of Yazd university of medical sciences. A total number of 440 students were recruited in this study using a stratified sampling method. Health-promoting lifestyle was measured using walker’s health–promoting life style profile II (HPLP-II) instrument. Data were analyzed by χ², student t-tests and one way ANOVA, using SPSS -11.5.

Result: Age range of participants was from 17 to 33 years with a mean age of 21.1 years and was composed of 67.4% females and 32.6% males. Totally, the overall health-promoting lifestyle profile had a mean of 130.31 ±19). The highest mean in the subscales was 26.03±5.04) for spiritual growth and the lowest was 16.24±4.28) for physical activity. Statistical significant association was seen between the socio-demographic variables particularly employment situation (p=0.002), study field (p=0.001), mother’s education level (p=0.007) and mother’s job (p=0.01) with mean of overall health-promoting lifestyle profile.

Conclusion: Regarding the situation of health-promoting behaviors due to low physical activity among students especially in girls providing health education programs toward increasing physical activity is recommended.