Evaluation of healthy lifestyle among nurses in Nassiriya teaching hospital, iraq

Introduction: Health is one of the phenomena that have an important place in the lives of individuals. Health within the framework of the definition of the World Health Organization; is not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, but a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being. If it is a healthy lifestyle; It is explained as a person's ability to control all factors affecting his or her health status and to choose and organize situations suitable for his/her own health status in order to perform daily activities. A healthy lifestyle should support not only staying away from diseases but also exhibiting behaviors that increase well-being throughout life. Nurses have the feature of being role models with the way of life they continue due to their professional responsibilities and social roles. In some studies conducted with nurses, it has been determined that the total score of the healthy lifestyle behaviors (HLB) scale is at a moderate level. Objective: The aim of this study is to evaluate the healthy lifestyle behaviors of nurses at Nasiriyah Teaching Hospital in Iraq. Method: A cross-sectional and descriptive study was conducted. It was held at Nasiriyah Teaching Hospital for about six months, between 12 December 2021 to 12 May 2022. It is a non-probability random sample and the total number of nurses in the hospital research sample is 800. The sample size was determined as 260 according to the 95% and 50% confidence intervals. Data were collected with the socio-demographic data form and HLS-II. With the study to be carried out at Nasiriyah Training Hospital, 10 hearing-impaired nurses and 3 nurses on annual maternity leave were excluded from the study. Results: The mean total score of the nurses from the Healthy Lifestyle Scale was 131.54±1.60, the lowest physical activity was 18.36±4.52, and the highest spiritual development sub-dimension score was 24.48±4.38.The physical activity sub-dimension score averages of male nurses are higher than the females, the stress management scores of the bachelor's graduate nurses are higher than the others, the physical activity sub-dimension scores of married nurses are higher than those of singles, the physical activity scores of nurses who work 8 hours are higher than nurses who work 16 hours, and statistically significant (p<0.05). Conclusion: In this study, it was found that the healthy lifestyle behaviors of the working nurses were moderate. In order to examine healthy lifestyle behaviors and the factors that affect these behaviors, it is recommended to conduct studies involving a larger sample.