Analysis of Health Promoting Behaviors among Employees of Ilam University of Medical Sciences during 2014-15

Introduction: Health promoting behaviors include behaviors that individuals pay to proper nutrition, regular exercise, keeping away from destructive behavior and drug, protection against accidents, early detection of physical symptoms, control of emotions, feelings and thoughts, coping with stress and psychological problems, adjustment and modification of interpersonal relationships in the social dimension. Materials & Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed on 185 employees of Ilam University of Medical Sciences using Convenience Method in 2014. Data was collected through health-promoting lifestyle questionnaire (HPLP II) with dimensions including physical activities, stress management, spiritual growth, nutrition, health and interpersonal relationships responsibility. After data collection, the data entry was done using SPSS 21 statistical software and then analyzed through appropriate statistical tests of descriptive statistics, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Pearson Correlation Coefficient and Linear Regression. In this study, the level of significance was less than 0.05. Findings: The mean score of promoting behavior among the employees was 130.47. The highest score was spiritual growth aspect and the lowest was physical activity aspect. Regression models of physical activity (P=0.006) and nutrition aspects (P=0.036) were significant with demographic variables. Discussion & Conclusions: According to the results of our study, physical activity score was lower than the other health promotion behaviors dimensions. More steps are suggested to be taken to determine the effective factors to improve the health promotion behaviors through impressive interventions among such a class of employees.