Attitude toward Health behaviors in Student Nurses

간호대학생의 건강행위에 대한 태도 조사연구

Health perception is a very important issue for student nurses to be future health professionals. The concept of health has changed with the emphasis of 'health promotion', and thus nurses now have a demanded role as a health promoter. According to health promotion theories, health-promoting behaviors are affected by cognitive variables, and human behaviors are related to thoughts and perception. This study was conducted to recognize the relationships of attitude toward health behaviors to other health related variables. The data was collected using a self administered survey. The instrument used in this study was attitude of health behavior scales that were developed by Okayama medical school. The subjects were 512 student nurses recruited from 1 college and 3 universities. The data was analyzed using SPSS pc program with mean, correlation. and multiple regression technique. The results were as follows: 1. The mean score of attitude of health behaviors of the student nurses was 8.11, showing a relatively high level. A high score of health belief was reported in 'self-responsible type' with the score of 4.80, and a high score of 'think for health or disease' was reported in passive type with the score of 3.12. 2. Specifically, there were significant positive correlations between the level of 'attitude of health behaviors' and other health related variables such as health perception, think for health or disease, and age. 3. Stepwise multiple regression analysis revealed that active thought, leisure, self-responsible perception and depression accounted for 13%of variance of attitude toward health behaviors. In conclusion, although student nurses certainly perceived the performance of health behavior, they need to learn in more systematical way in order to be a better health promoter, one of the role of nurses. The results of the study suggest that further studies need to be done on attitude toward health behaviors and performance of health behavior by student nurses.