Abstract

The purpose of this study is to inquire into the degree of health promotion activity of university students, and to confirm the general factors of health promotion behavior in order to offer basic data for a nursing strategy to improve health promotion behavior. For this research, data was collected from university men and women through questionnaires from February 18 to March 20 in 1998. The author develop a measuring instrument on the basis of related reviews of health promoting behavior in the prevention of chronic disease, as well as accounting for demographic factors, biological factors, and circumstanctial factors. The content validity of the instrument was authenticated by two professors of the science of nursing,. and the reliability was confirmed by a 'cronbach' alpha after moditying the content through a pre-test on 30 students. 475 persons were analyzed in terms of an average, percentage, t-test, ANOVA by 'SPSS-PC'. The analyzed data was the following. 1. The acting degree of health promoting behavior was 3.26 point out of 6. Among the sub-levels of health promoting behavior, the order of importance was the following. self-actualization (4.62), interpersonal(4.60), stress management (4.0l), nutrition(3.68), responsibility(3.1l), liquid and cigaretles ues(2.85), and exercise (2.33). 2. The differences in health promoting behavior according to subject's general character were the following. Age(F=6.012, p=.003), major (F=7.243, P=.000), sex(t=7.60, P=.000), religion(F=2.454, p=.045), living status(F=2.849, p=.024), health concern of parents(F=7.596, P=.000), taking health programs(F=2.710, p=.007), case history of the family( t=-1.980, p=.048). Health promoting behavior is affected by a higher age, majoring in the social sciences, having religion, male, living in the relatives' home, having to take health programs and a higher health concern of the parents. Suggestions: 1. The degree of health promoting behavior appears low in this study. It is crucial, therefore, to develop a health program to improve health promoting behavior and to study how to center the daily health life of students.