The effect of the public health nursing course on students’ healthy lifestyle behaviors

Abstract

Objective: This study was conducted to examine the effect of the public health nursing course given to nursing students on their healthy lifestyle behaviors. Methods: A one-group pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design was used in the study, which was carried out with 80 students studying at the nursing department of a foundation university and volunteering to participate in the study. The data were collected twice before and after the course using the Personal Information Form and the Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile (HPLP). Descriptive statistics, Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis tests, the paired t-test, were used to evaluate the data. Results: After the public health nursing course, a significant increase was determined in the students' HPLP total score and the "exercise", "nutrition", "self-realization", "health responsibility", "stress management", and "interpersonal support" subscale scores (p<0.05). A significant difference was found in the "HPLP" scale total scores according to the students' physical activity level variable, "interpersonal support" subscale according to the gender and body mass index variables, in the "exercise" subscale according to the smoking status and physical activity level variable (p<0.05). Conclusion: The public health nursing course was observed to affect nursing students' healthy lifestyle behaviors. For a healthy lifestyle of nursing students, it is recommended that programs for gaining these behaviors be developed in light of the current literature and advanced studies should be carried out to determine the transformation status of the provided education into behavior.