Nurses' Views on General Healty Lifestyle and Nutrition and the İncidence of Orthorexia Nervosa

The army of well-equipped health professionals who have healthy eating and healthy lifestyle habits is very important both for the individual's own health and the public health they serve. The aim of this study was to determine the opinions of all nurses working in Bursa Uludağ University Medical Faculty Hospital about healthy lifestyle and nutrition,the prevalence of orthorexia neurosis, which is a group between nutrition disorders and its relationship with anxiety. The study was structured questionnarie by using the survey method which was prepared by scanning the literature. The first part of the questionnaire consists of 21 questions about general information including demographic data, 11 questions about nutritional status in the second part, Ortho-11 scale for the determination of Orthorexia nervosa (ON) in the third part and Beck Anxiety Scale (BAI) in the last part. In the study, it was aimed to reach all nurses working in the hospital (500 nurses), the study was conducted with 368 nurses (73,6%) reached. The mean age of the 368 nurses in the study group was 34±7,9 years; 89,4% (n: 329) were female and 10,6% (n: 39) were male. In terms of nutrition of nurses, it is seen that 36,9% of the nurses frequently skip meals, 57,3% have regular breakfast, and 37,9% of them consider their nutrition to be good according to their nutritional evaluations. It is also noteworthy that 83,7% do not know the calories in their diets. The mean score of the Ortho-11 Scale was 25±3,4 and 29,6% of the participants were at risk for ON. 87,2% of women and 12,8% of men were at risk for ON and no significant result was found (p: 0,364). In terms of Body Mass Index (BMI), a significant value was found in the general evaluation (p: 0,059). When BMI was divided into groups, there was a significant difference between normal and overweight individuals and ON (p: 0,006). There was no significant difference between the participants' anxiety and ON using Beck Anxiety Inventory (p: 0,875). As a result, it is seen that nurses, who are important soldiers of the health army, have insufficiencies in terms of nutrition. There was no significant effect of anxiety on Orthorexia nervosa. Because orthorexia is difficult to recognize and gradually increases, patients should be more careful in this respect.