Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Department of Health Education and Promotion, School of Public Health, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences

2 Department of Health Education and Promotion, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Iran

Abstract

Background: Health promoting lifestyle (HPL) focuses on life promotion through lifestyle
which consists of six aspects of “physical activity”, “nutrition”, “health responsibility”, “spiritual
growth”, “interpersonal relations” and “stress management”. This lifestyle promotes health
and welfare and induces satisfaction, self-persuasion and self-improvement. Considering
the importance of the way a new behavior affects “life quality” as a motivational factor for
starting and continuing that behavior, this study aimed to determine the relationship between
health-promoting lifestyle and its aspects. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional
study was performed on undergraduate students at School of Health, Isfahan University of
Medical Sciences, using a census method. Health promoting lifestyle was measured by Health
Promotion Lifestyle Profile two and life quality was assessed by the Persian version of QLQ-C30
questionnaire. Data analysis was conducted using descriptive and inferential statistical tests
in SPSS. Results: Mean age of the participants was 21.12 years old. From among six aspects
of health promoting behaviors, spiritual growth and responsibility with the means of 22.01 ±
2.224 and 20 ± 2.31 had the highest and physical activity with the mean of 17.58 ± 2.9 had the
lowest scores, respectively. General life quality of 40.7% students was good and only 19.8% of
them had an average global life quality. The highest and lowest frequencies of health-related life
quality belonged to very good (58.6%) and excellent (9%) health, respectively. Except for stress
management (P = 0.05) and gender of the students, there were no significant relationships
between other HPL aspects and gender. There was no statistically significant relationship
between global life quality of students and nutrition, physical activity, self-health responsibility
and stress management while there was a significant relationship between global life quality
and spiritual growth of the students. Health-related life quality and stress management were
significantly related to each other; however, no statistically significant relationship was observed
between health-related life quality and nutrition, physical activity, interpersonal relations and
spiritual growth. Conclusion: There is a significant relationship between adopting health
promoting lifestyle and aspects of spiritual growth and stress management on the one hand
and general quality of life on the other, at least among students.

Keywords

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