Nursing Students’ Lifestyle and Related Factors

Abstract

Objective: to determine nursing students’ lifestyle at a university in Mexico, according to personal factors and previous behaviors of Nola J. Pender’s Health Promotion Model. Method: this is a cross-sectional study developed at a public university of Minatitlán, Veracruz, Mexico, in 2019, with nursing students enrolled in the curricular internship course, totaling 130. Data were collected that include sociodemographic, clinical and lifestyle and behavior characteristics through the Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile I. We used Student’s t-tests, ANOVA and Pearson’s correlation for the analyses. Results: of the 130 participants, 92 (70.8%) were classified as healthy lifestyle and 38 (29.2%) had a moderately healthy lifestyle. Among the scale domains, the physical activity domain was the one with the lowest score. Negative correlations were found between the self-actualization domain and clinical variables, such as blood pressure, Body Mass Index and waist circumference, and also between this domain and the time of cell phone and television use. Conclusion: the lifestyle general classification of most participants was healthy, but the analyzes of the individual domains demonstrate the need for political and clinical interventions that influence nursing students’ health-promoting behaviors.