Nursing, midwifery and health psychology students' attitude towards health-promoting behaviours: a cross-sectional study

Аннотация

The present study focuses on the assessment of health-promoting behaviors and the manner in which the curriculum of teaching programs affects students in the bache­lor's degree programs in Nursing and Midwifery, as well as the professional master's degree program in Health Psy­chology. The study used a descriptive correlational design. The data were collected between 15th of February and 15th of March, 2024 from undergraduate students enrolled in nursing and midwifery programmes, as well as postgraduate students pursuing a professional master's degree in Health Psychology at the Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Shkodra "Luigj Gurakuqi", Shkodër, Albania. The data were collected using an online questionnaire comprising three sections. The first section incorporated socio-demographic variables. The second section incorporated the Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile II (HPLP II) questionnaire, developed by Walker et al., 1995, to assess health-promoting behaviours. The third section of the study focused on curricular formation and included three questions designed to assess students' perceptions of health promotion in their academic programmes. The mean overall Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile II (HPLP II) score was 2.60±0.40, indicating that, on average, students follow health-promoting behaviours from "sometimes" to "often". Among the six subscales, spiritual growth (2.99±0.50) and interpersonal relations (2.89±0.47) had the highest mean scores, suggesting that students more frequently follow behaviours related to personal development and social support. The findings of the study indicated that students enrolled in both bachelor's degree programmes in Nursing and Midwifery and master's degree programmes in Health Psychology, despite being presumed to possess a substantial body of knowledge on health-promoting behaviours, do not consistently implement these practices in their daily lives. Given their role as role models for others, health personnel have a dual responsibility for the promotion of healthy behaviours. This finding suggests a deficiency in the incorporation of health-promoting behaviours as a core value within the curricula of bachelor's degree programmes in nursing and midwifery.