Investigation of Healthy Lifestyle Behaviors of High School Students Studying in the Field of Health Services

Abstract

Aim: The aim of this study is to examine the healthy lifestyle behaviors of Vocational and Technical Anatolian high school (VTAHS) health services students. Method: The research is of descriptive type and was conducted in all seven schools of a province with health services in VTAHS. The sample consisted of 681 students attending the 11th grade in the departments of assistant nurse, assistant midwife and health care technician. Data were collected with a personal information form and Adolescent Lifestyle Profile (ALP) scale. T-Test in Independent Groups, Mann-Whitney U Test, One-way ANOVA, Kruskal Wallis were used in the analysis of the data. Bonferroni was used in the post hoc analysis. Results: The mean age of the students participating in the study was 16.73± 0.52, 74.6% were female, body mass index (BMI) of 67.3% of them was normal. While the lowest mean score was observed in the subgroup of health responsibility (2.10±0.48), the highest mean score (3.14±0.51) was observed in the interpersonal relations subgroup. Being a woman, living in a town, having a broken family member, studying in the midwife assistant department, not staying with the family, not working, having bad family or friend relations, having a diagnosis of illness, having a bad perception of health status, not having a normal weight BMI was at a disadvantage in terms of ALP scale scores. Conclusions and Suggestions: Gender, place he/she lives, family type, department, place he/she stays, working a job outside of school, family relations, friend relations, disease diagnosis, current state of health and BMI of students were found to be effective in ALP scale scores. These students, who are on the way to become the health personnel of the future, should be made aware of healthy lifestyle behaviors and interventional studies should be carried out to develop these behaviors.