Effect of COVID-19 pandemic on lifestyle behaviors in nursing students

This research was carried out with a descriptive method in order to determine the effect of the new lifestyle brought by the COVID-19 pandemic on the lifestyle behaviors of nursing students. The population of the research consists of 62824 nursing students registered in Turkey in the academic year of 2020-2021. The research was completed with 489 nursing students from 25 universities selected by random and proportional sampling method from state and foundation universities in Turkey. The data were collected by means of an online questionnaire, "Sociodemographic Information Form" and "Lifestyle Related Behavior Questionnaire". Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Shapiro-Wilk, Mann Whitney-U test, Kruskal Wallis-H test, Post-Hoc tests and Pearson chi-square test were used to evaluate the data. During the pandemic, students are best at healthy eating, and worst at anxiety and stress. Women eat healthier, have better social support and physical activities; men experience less anxiety and stress; first- and second-year students eat unhealthier and experience more anxiety and stress; students who living in metropolitan cities eat unhealthier; those who do not have chronic diseases and do not continuous drug use have better physical activities, and those who have COVID-19 infection eat healthier (p<0.05). In Those who did regular physical activity before the pandemic, those who said "My physical activity decreased" compared to those who did not; in those who smoked before the pandemic, those who said "My smoking increased" compared to those who did not, and in those who consumed alcohol before the pandemic, those who said "My alcohol use increased" compared to those who did not were significantly higher (p<0.05). It is important to develop and use guidelines for a healthy lifestyle in sudden and unusual situations such as pandemics. Students should be given training and support on coping effectively with stress, staying physically active and maintaining a healthy diet. In order to strengthen the belonging of the students and to better perceive the support of their friends, group activities should be emphasized and club activities should be implemented in order to increase the interaction between the students.