Health Promoting Lifestyles of Korean Employees

근로자의 건강증진 생활양식 실천에 관한 연구

Introduction : In Korea, national attention to the workplace health promotion programs (HPP) for employees began in early 1990s. Governmental supports for the HPP and education programs have given to the employees. The purpose of this study is to find the performance degree of employees' health promoting lifestyle(HPL). Subjects and Methods : For this study, 615 employees who attended governmental educations were selected as research samples. The tool for measuring HPL used in this study was developed for Korean by In-Sook Park in 1995. It is composed of 4-point scaled 60 items and divided into 11 subcategories. The data were collected by self reporting questionnaires from June to December in 1997. Those data were analyzed percentile, mean, standard deviation, ANOVA, t-test with SAS program. Major findings are as follows; 1. The total mean score of the employees' HPL performance was 2.66. The average scores of 'harmonious relationships' category were the highest as 3.11, whereas the one of 'professional health maintenance' were the lowest as 2.02. The remains were 'sanitary life'(2.90), 'emotional support(2.85), 'regular diet'(2.84), 'self achievement'(2.78), 'healthy diet'(2.56), 'rest and sleep'(2.56), 'exercise and activity'(2.54), 'diet control'(2.53), 'self-control'(2.52). 2. The factors affecting HLP were category of industries and sex, age, marital status, education level, major, educational experience of health promotion, among personal characteristics. The employees of service industries, female, older age, married, nurse, educated for health promotion, graduated from junior college performed HLP more than the others. 3. The participation rates of employees for HPP were 12.4%, because of limited time and facilities and equipments. Recommendations; 1. The regulation for performing the health promotion programs in the industries is essential for activating industrial health promoting movement. 2. More governmental supports for educations and services for health promotion programs in the industries are needed. 3. For behavioral changes of the employees, the contents of educations have to consist of exercise and activity, rest and sleep, diet and smoking habits. 4. The evaluating studies for ready made health promotion programs in the industries are expected.