Abstract:

Aim: This study was conducted to examine the effect of the public health nursing course given to nursing students on their healthy lifestyle behaviors. Method: A one-group pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design type was used in the study, which was carried out with 80 students studying at the nursing department of a foundation university and volunteering to participate in the study. The data were collected twice before and after the course using the Personal Information Form and the The Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile (HPLP). Descriptive statistics, the paired t-test, and the independent samples t-test were used to evaluate the data. Results: After the public health nursing course, a significant increase was determined in the students’ HPLP total score and the exercise, nutrition, self-realization, health responsibility, stress management, and interpersonal support subscale scores (p<0.05). A significant difference was found in the “self-realization” subscale according to the students’ gender variable, in the “health responsibility” subscale according to the marital status variable, and in the “interpersonal support” subscale according to the body mass index variable (p<0.05). Conclusion: The public health nursing course was observed to have an impact on nursing students' healthy lifestyle behaviors. For nursing students to have a healthy lifestyle, it is recommended that courses for gaining these behaviors should be developed in the light of the current literature, mainly practice-based nursing undergraduate programs should be included in the curriculum, and advanced studies should be carried out to determine the transformation status of the provided education into behavior.

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