Health promoting behaviors of staff in a university of medical sciences in southeast of Iran.

Background Health promoting behaviors are appropriate indicators to determine individuals' health status. The staff of a health care system plays an important role in enhancing health promoting behaviors in society; therefore, the present study is aimed to evaluate health promoting behaviors of the staff in a university of medical sciences. Methods A descriptive study was conducted on 140 staff of the Kerman University of Medical Sciences in the southeast of Iran. Data were collected using the Persian version of the Health Promotion Lifestyle Profile-II questionnaire with six dimensions of spiritual growth, health responsibility, interpersonal relationships, stress management, exercise and physical activity and nutrition habits. The data were analyzed using SPSS (version 18), descriptive statistics, Student's t-test and analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results The mean of health promoting behaviors of the staff was at the moderate level (2.22 ± 0.10). The highest and lowest means were related to the dimensions of nutrition habits (2.75 ± 0.29) and exercise and physical activity (1.70 ± 0.24), respectively. There was a significant difference in the scores of health promotion behaviors based on age, so that the health promoting behaviors in the age group younger than 40 years old were higher than that in other age groups (p = 0.04). Conclusion Some health promoting behaviors such as exercise and physical activity have not been appropriately merged into daily life. It is recommended to provide educational programs for all aspects of health promoting behaviors of the staff's health in order to promote productivity.