Health-promoting lifestyle among nurses working at tertiary care public hospitals Karachi: a cross-sectional study

Nurses are pivotal in providing compassionate care to their clients. Though, nurses are aware of health-promoting behaviours, they still have a higher prevalence of overweight and obesity, dyslipidaemia, diabetes, and hypertension which make them more prone to non-communicable diseases. Healthy lifestyle is linked to a reduced risk of these diseases and premature mortality ultimately resulting in longer life expectancy and raised health-related standard of living. Nurses being a front-line care provider face significant challenges that may impact their own health and well-being, witnessing a rising prevalence of burnout, stress-related illnesses, and lifestyle diseases.

To determine the health-promoting lifestyle behaviours and identify factors that act as barriers or facilitators to adopting these behaviours among nurses working at tertiary care public hospitals, Karachi.

The study was carried out using a descriptive cross-sectional design at two public-sectors hospitals of Karachi by recruiting nurses, who have no history of recent surgery, neuro-muscular deformity or currently suffering from a psychological disorder using non-probability convenience sampling technique. The data was gathered using an adaptive, validated, structured and self-reported questionnaire "Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile-II. Data analysis was done through R-Studio. Quantitative variables were summarized in terms of Mean ± SD and qualitative in frequency and percentages. Univariate and multivariable linear regression was applied for identifying the demographic and professional characteristics associated with study variable at significance level of 5%.

The mean age of the participants was 35.7 ± 7.9 years, of whom 52.7% were male. The majority worked in wards (53.1%) with an average of 11.3 ± 7.6 years of clinical experience. More than half of the nurses were obese (54.2%), while 5.8% reported smoking, 4.6% had diabetes, and 6.2% had hypertension. 57% nurses had good health-promoting lifestyle with a mean score of 135.69 ± 18.51 having statistically significant relationship with age, socioeconomic status, work experience, nature of duty, and BMI (p < 0.05).

Majority of nurses found to have moderate to good level of healthy behaviours. Age, double shift duty, and BMI were identified as key predictors for such behaviours emphasizing challenges in shaping lifestyle.

Not applicable.