The Assessment of Health-Promoting Lifestyle Status and Its Determinants among Students of Iran University of Medical Sciences

Abstract

Careful assessment of lifestyle status among students is a necessity for identifying lifestyle problems and, it is an essential prerequisite for more efficient planning and implementing health promotion interventions among them. This study performed to estimate the current status of a health-promoting lifestyle among students of Iran University of Medical Sciences. This cross-sectional study was performed on 250 students of Iran University of Medical Sciences. By performing a proportional stratified random sampling method according to the number of students in each academic discipline, samples were chosen. The data gathering tool was a two-part questionnaire. The first part was related to demographic and socioeconomic information. The second part consisted of the Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile (HPLP-II) questionnaire. The data were analyzed using SPSS version 23 through descriptive and inferential statistics. The results were statistically observed as significant at p < 0.05. The mean score of health-promoting lifestyle was 124.36 ± 18.41. The highest mean score was for the nutrition dimension (23.67±4.91) and the lowest was for the physical activity dimension (15.08±5.16). This research showed that a statistical proper correlation was found between marital status and spiritual growth. Also, there was a relationship between academic discipline and health responsibility. Additionally, another statistical significant relationship between financial status and health-promoting lifestyle, health responsibility, spiritual growth, and stress management was observed. Since the status of a health-promoting lifestyle is not satisfactory, a wide range of planning and implementing health interventions are needed to improve the health-promoting lifestyle among the students