Health Promoting Lifestyle among Health Professionals

Abstract

Introduction
Health promotion is important for health-promoting behaviour and disease prevention, which is associated with improved physical and mental health outcomes. So, this study aimed to find out the health-promoting lifestyle profile of health professionals working in Karnali Province.

Methods
A descriptive cross-sectional study was done among 217 randomly selected doctors, nurses, and paramedics in Karnali Province. Participants who had at least six months of experience and had no conditions that limited their physical activity. Data were collected by using the structured questionnaire. Mean scores of overall and subscale health-promoting lifestyle were calculated, and a t-test was used to compare differences between demographic variables and health-promoting lifestyle of health professionals.

Results
The majority of participants (67.74%) were younger than 30 years, with a mean age of 28.92 ± 6.516, and 62.67% were female. A majority (69.12%) of participants perceived their current health as good. In terms of health-promoting behaviours, 62.67% showed a moderate level of engagement. The overall mean health-promoting lifestyle score was 123.99 ± 16.66 out of 208, indicating a moderate practice level among health professionals. Furthermore, a statistically significant difference in health-promoting lifestyle scores with age groups (p = .035) was found, which suggests that age may influence the adoption of health-promoting behaviours.

Conclusions
Findings indicate that health professionals practiced a moderate level of health-promoting behaviours, underscoring the need for targeted advocacy and awareness to improve the health-promoting practices.