Happiness and its impact on health promoting behaviors in students of Tabriz university of medical sciences

Abstract

Introduction: Happiness is a concept which has found special importance in the recent years due to its mediator role . Due importance of the issue as an indicator of mental health and its impact on all aspects of life, including academic achievement and adoption of healthy lifestyles among people, this study aimed to determine the state of happiness and its impact on health behaviors among students of different fields at different educational levels of Medical Sciences University of Tabriz. Methods and materials: This study was conducted in descriptive-analytical method which was conducted in order to evaluate happiness and its impacts on health promoting behaviors among students of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences. Statistical population of the study involved all students of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences in 2015 and the research statistical samples also involved part of university students of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences. Sampling method of the study was classified randomized method. Sampling was conducted in randomized method. Total number of the study participants is 387. The research data were collected in this study, by two types of questionnaires. First questioner was Oxford happiness questioner which included 29 items and scoring method was based on the Likert scale between 1-5. The maximum score was 145 and the minimum score was considered 29. The second tool used in the study was Walker et. al health promoting behaviors Profile (Health promotion life style II (HPLP-II developed in 1987, including 52 items, each item in the multiple choice Likert scale score had at least 52 and at the most 208 scores. After completing the questionnaires, data were entered into SPSS 16 software. Descriptive statistic was used to provide qualitative data and independent T-test was used to compare health promoting behaviors and its subcategories and happiness among the tow sexes. One way ANOVA was sued to compare health promoting behaviors and its subcategories and happiness among students of the different departments. simple linear regression was used for predictors of happiness and its health promoting behaviors and subthemes simple and Pearson correlation was used to investigate correlation of subcategories of health promoting behaviors with happiness. P= 05/0> was considered as level of significance. Results: Based on the findings of the study, happiness index was weak and medium in 36/5subjects and 63/5 of the studied students were good and excellent. The average score on the subjects of health promoting behaviors was (61/5 ±0/54). The lowest score was obtained in the area of physical activity. There was a significant relationship among the happiness and health promoting behaviors (0/537) and each of subcategory of it among the studied astudents. The highest relation was seen in and spiritual health growth (0/536) and the lowest relation was seen in the nutrition (0/282).

Conclusion: The results of the collected data suggested that some interventions such as promoting physical activity, life skills training, transformation consulting patio to Active and relationships with the families and training them are needed to promote the welfare and behavior of health promotion in the students. Given the correlation between happiness and health promoting behaviors, some solutions such as national, regional and local planning are necessary to promote the students’ level of happiness and enhance health promoting behaviors .