Comparison of health promoting behaviors in the first and fourth year students of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical and non-Medical Sciences in the academic year 92-93

Background & Objective: Health promotion is defined as the process of enabling people to increase control over their behavior and health improvement. Among all these, health promoting behaviors are one of the best ways by which people can maintain and control their health. Due to the importance of young adults› health in promoting health in the community, This study aimed to determine and compare the health promoting behaviors in the first and fourth year students of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical and non-Medical Sciences in the academic year 92-93. Method: This cross-sectional study was carried on 500 students from the two Shahid Beheshti Universities by multistage sampling. Data were collected by the 52-item questionnaire of Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile II. The data were analyzed using SPSS version 18, independent t-test, Pearson correlation, multiple regression analysis and ANOVA analysis. Results: The results showed that from the total score of 208, the average and standard deviation of health promoting behaviors was 128.74 ± 20.16 in students of medical sciences and 128.96 ± 20.52 in non-medical students. Among all the aspects of health promoting behaviors on the two tested groups, self-actualization and physical activity had the highest and lowest scores respectively. Conclusion: In this study, there was no statistically significant difference between the average score of health promoting behaviors among medical and non-medical students