Determinants of Health-Promoting Lifestyle among Nurses in Taiwan

This two-phase study was undertaken to: (1) determine the relationships of self-efficacy, perceived health status, perceived social support, age, marital status, education, work shift, work setting, and years employed as a registered nurse (RN) to the practice of a health-promoting lifestyle; (2) determine the combination of predictor variables explaining the variance in the practice of a health-promoting lifestyle; and (3) investigate other personal and environmental cues and characteristics related to health-promoting lifestyles among nurses (N = 218) in Taiwan. Findings of the quantitative approach in Phase One indicated that a health-promoting lifestyle was significantly related to self-efficacy, perceived health status, perceived social support, age, and years employed as an RN. Four predictor variables, namely, self-efficacy, perceived health status, perceived social support, and working the evening shift, explained 40.4% of the variance in health-promoting lifestyle in this sample. Responses to open-ended questions revealed other factors that contribute to health-promoting lifestyle among the nurses. In Phase Two, nine subjects who scored very high and 10 who scored very low on the Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile (HPLP) were interviewed regarding health beliefs, behaviors and factors influencing the practice of a health-promoting lifestyle. The interview data partly validate the findings from Phase One. In many situations, the subjects in Phase Two of this study cited predictor variables investigated such as social supports and rotating shift. Subjects also stressed the importance of energy, perseverance and partners in initiating and maintaining a health-promoting lifestyle. The interview data revealed other personal and environmental cues and characteristics of a health-promoting lifestyle. The high group had initiated less lifestyle changes, but maintained the changes longer than subjects in the low group. They also identified more enabling characteristics than did the low group. Subjects in the low group used more stress management techniques and identified more hindrances for lifestyle changes than the high HPLP group. A revised model was developed for testing in future studies