Lifestyle Practices among Nurses in Tertiary Hospital

ABSTRACT By virtue of the kind of work nurses do, they are exposed to high levels of stress which has an effect on their personal health. Their work shifts, long days of work, level of physical exercise and untimely meals, challenges their personal lifestyle choices. A healthy lifestyle is all the more mandated for health professionals who must practice what they preach. Lifestyle choices of staff working in hospital need a greater understanding as they are prone to sickness and developing lifestyle diseases such as obesity, hypertension and diabetes. This interferes in their family life, spiritual life, stress levels, interpersonal relationship and work input. A descriptive research was conducted among nurses to identify the lifestyle practices and to find an association of demographic and clinical factors with lifestyle practices. The calculated sample size was 247. Duration of study extended over a period of three months. Research was carried out using standardized tools viz Health Promoting Lifestyle self-administered questionnaire. Simple random sampling technique was used to recruit participants. Mean age group was 33 years with average BMI of 25. Lifestyle practices among nurses revealed that 17.5% never attempt to practice healthy lifestyle while 18.6% routinely practice healthy lifestyle. Promoting healthy lifestyle among nurses at the work place ensures positive health behavior. The article throws light on this hither to unexplored issue in order to promote optimum health among nurses who are backbone of the health team.