The Effect of the Public Health Nursing Course on Students’ Healthy Lifestyle Behaviors

Abstract

Objective: This study was conducted to examine the effect of the public health nursing course given to nursing students on their healthy lifestyle behaviors. Methods: A one-group pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design was used in the study, which was carried out with 80 students studying at the nursing department of a foundation university and volunteering to participate in the study. The data were collected twice before and after the course using the Personal Information Form and the Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile (HPLP). Descriptive statistics, Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis tests, the paired t-test, were used to evaluate the data. Results: After the public health nursing course, a significant increase was determined in the students’ HPLP total score and the “exercise”, “nutrition”, “self-realization”, “health responsibility”, “stress management”, and “interpersonal support” subscale scores (p