Health-promoting factors among students in higher education within health care and social work: a cross-sectional analysis of baseline data in a multicentre longitudinal studyShow others and affiliations
2022 (English)In: BMC Public Health, E-ISSN 1471-2458, Vol. 22, no 1, article id 1314
Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Background
Educational environments are considered important in strengthening students’ health status and knowledge, which are associated with good educational outcomes. It has been suggested to establish healthy universities based on a salutogenic approach – namely, health promotion. The aim of this study was to describe health-promoting resources and factors among first-semester students in higher education in healthcare and social work.
Methods
This cross-sectional study is based on a survey distributed among all students in seven healthcare and social work programmes at six universities in southern Sweden. The survey was carried out in 2018 using a self-reported, web-based questionnaire focussing on general health and well-being, lifestyle factors together with three validated instruments measuring health-promoting factors and processes: the Sense of Coherence (SOC) scale, Salutogenic Health Indicator Scale (SHIS) and Occupational Balance Questionnaire (OBQ).
Results
Of 2283 students, 851 (37.3%) completed the survey, of whom 742 (87.1%) were women; 722 (84.8%) were enrolled on healthcare programmes, and 129 (15.2%) were enrolled on social work programmes. Most reported good general health and well-being (88.1% and 83.7%, respectively). The total mean scores for the SOC scale, SHIS and OBQ were, respectively, 59.09 (SD = 11.78), 44.04 (SD = 9.38) and 26.40 (SD = 7.07). Well-being and several healthy lifestyles were related to better general health and higher SOC, SHIS and OBQ scores. Multiple linear and logistic regressions showed that perceived well-being and no sleeping problems significantly predicted higher general health and higher SOC, SHIS and OBQ scores. Being less sedentary and non-smoking habits were significant predictors of higher SOC.
Conclusions
Swedish students in higher education within the healthcare and social work sector report good general health and well-being in the first semester, as well as health-promoting resources (i.e. SOC, SHIS and OBQ), and in some aspects, a healthy lifestyle. High-intensity exercise, no sleeping problems and non-smoking seem to be of importance to both general health and health-promotive resources. This study contributes to knowledge about the health promotive characteristics of students in the healthcare and social work fields, which is of importance for planning universities with a salutogenic approach.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
BioMed Central (BMC), 2022. Vol. 22, no 1, article id 1314
Keywords [en]
Health and health-promoting resources, Health behavior, Healthy lifestyles, Higher education, Occupational Balance Questionnaire, Salutogenesis, Salutogenic Health Indicator Scale, Sense of coherence, Students’ health
National Category
Social Sciences Public Health, Global Health, Social Medicine and Epidemiology
Research subject
Family-Centred Health; Wellbeing in long-term health problems (WeLHP)
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:his:diva-21661DOI: 10.1186/s12889-022-13690-zISI: 000823651600001PubMedID: 35804344Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85133710137OAI: oai:DiVA.org:his-21661DiVA, id: diva2:1685989
Funder
Halmstad UniversityRegion Västra Götaland
Note
CC BY 4.0
© The Author(s) 2022. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
© 2022 BioMed Central Ltd unless otherwise stated. Part of Springer Nature.
Correspondence: Ingrid.larsson@hh.se
Open access funding provided by Halmstad University. The six universities in the Swedish framework for ‘Health Research in Collaboration’ and Region Västra Götaland jointly financed the cost of project management. All authors receive regular research support from their respective universities. This research project has not received external funding and has not undergone peer review by the funding body.
2022-08-082022-08-082023-08-28Bibliographically approved