Caring for self while learning to care for others: a challenge for nursing students

While learning to care for others, undergraduate nursing students often fail to care for themselves. This study examined the effect of a self-care intervention on undergraduate nursing students. Self-care is the practice of health-related activities in which individuals engage to adopt a healthier lifestyle. A pretest-posttest, single group design was used to test whether students increased their self-care activities after completing a course requiring self-care. Full-time junior nursing students (N = 67) were required to complete a lifestyle self-care plan and use 2 hours of practice time per week to engage in self-care behaviors. A measure of components of a healthy lifestyle, the Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile-II, showed an increase on six of the seven scales. These findings suggest that nursing students may increase self-care when given time to develop self-care strategies as part of a nursing course.