Health-promoting lifestyles among nursing students from Argentina

Lifestyles comprise the set of habits and behaviors that influence individuals' health and well-being. When not properly adopted, they can contribute to the development of chronic diseases and a decline in quality of life.

To describe health-promoting lifestyles among nursing students at a public university in the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2024.

An analytical, cross-sectional, quantitative study was conducted. The study included 314 nursing students who completed Nola Pender's Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile - II. For the inferential analysis, Student's t-tests, ANOVA, and Pearson's correlation test were applied.

Respondents had a mean age of 27.04 years (SD = 8.11); most were female (86.62%), single (76.43%), childless (73.25%), working (55.41%), and enrolled in the fourth year of the program (24.52%). Healthy ratings were observed in the dimensions of Spiritual growth and Interpersonal Relations, while the remaining dimensions were rated as unhealthy. The average lifestyle score was 124.97 points (SD = 20.49), equivalent to 60.08% of the instrument's total score. A total of 78.66% of respondents had a lifestyle categorized as regular.

It is necessary to implement interventions aimed at strengthening self-care practices among nursing students and identify the associated factors.

Most of the respondents exhibited a regular lifestyle with high levels of physical inactivity, overweight, poor dietary habits, and inadequate stress management.