Differences in Health Promoting Lifestyle Behavior of Health Management Students Based Upon Early Diagnosis Coverage in a Cancer Course

Background: This is a descriptive study to determine whether coursework that is focused on early diagnosisin cancer makes a difference in self-reported health promoting lifestyle behavior of students who study healthmanagement. Materials and
Methods: The population of the study consisted of a sample of 104 students enrolledin the Department of Health Management at the Faculty of Health in Kirikkale University in Turkey. Fortyeightstudents enrolled in a course called “Early Diagnosis of Cancer” and fifty-six did not take this course.Demographic information was collected and the “Health Promotion Life-Style Profile (HPLP)” was used tocollect health promotion data. Frequency and descriptive statistics including one-way ANOVA, Mann-WhitneyU test, Kruskal Wallis tests were used to evaluate data.
Results: The HPLP mean score of the students was foundto be 127.5±17.45. The highest mean score was observed for self-fulfillment and health responsibility, while thelowest was for diet and exercise sub-scales. It was found that certain variables were effective in developing healthpromoting lifestyle behaviors such as choosing this job voluntarily, working status of father and participationin social activity (p<0.05). In conclusion, it was found that the students had moderate levels of health promotinglifestyle behavior and they should be supported in terms of diet and exercise.