Influence of self-concept in the lifestyles of nursing students in a private university in Eastern Lima

The academic formation of health science professionals involves their harmonious and integral development as human beings, considering, among other elements, self-concept and lifestyles, in order to become a proactive agent of change in the place where they work. Generally, health science students at the university level in Peru start as adolescents and continue into their later teenage years, a time when self-concept and behavior are developing with a relation between the two. Additionally, university students often do not eat a balanced diet, sleep an adequate number of hours each night, or do enough exercise during the week. This problem is compounded when they have a heavy course load, as is often the case for students in the health sciences. With this in mind, the objective of this study was to identify the influence of self-concept on lifestyles in students of a private university in eastern Lima. The study has a non-experimental design and it is a quantitative study with an explanatory-causal and cross-sectional approach. The sampling method used was non-probabilistic, and 135 students participated in the study, meeting the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Their ages ranged from 16 to 24 years old (M = 20) and the majority of the participants were female (87 %). The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the university. Two previously validated instruments were chosen to measure the primary variables of the study. The Lifestyle Questionnaire (PEPS-I), consisting of 48 questions with answers on a Likert scale, consists of six factors and was chosen since it has already been validated with adolescents in Peru. The AF-5 has 30 questions grouped into five factors, and it was chosen for the self-concept variable since it has already been validated in a sample of university students in Peru. Both instruments were administered with the support of the Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences of the university where the study was carried out. Teachers of different courses granted around 20 minutes of their class time for the study team members to come in, present the study, ask for informed consent, and then apply the instruments with those who were willing to participate. In the descriptive analysis, the average of the lifestyle profile corresponds to the self-realization dimension (43.2), followed by the health responsibility dimension (26.1) and the lowest average belongs to the exercise dimension (12.4). In the analysis of the self-concept variable, the social self-concept obtained the highest average (43.2) and the physical self-concept presented the lowest average (28.2). A model was developed to explore the relationships between the two variables and within the factors of each variable. This model shows that self-concept significantly influences the lifestyle of these students (beta =.80; p <.05), that is, self-concept is able to explain 80 % of the lifestyle profile that the students currently hold. Within each variable, most of the factors for self-concept had values equal to or greater than.80, except for the family factor which had a value of.55 while the factors for lifestyles were all above.75 except for the exercise factor. Health science education at the university level should include integral formation not only about knowledge that can be used to treat future patients, but also about lifestyle changes that can help their own health. Self-concept and lifestyle are both in a process of formation during the university years, and they are related. Simply learning about the benefits of healthy lifestyles is not enough, as many health science students are taught these concepts but yet do not put them into practice. Social self-concept in particular, since it was the highest score among the related factors, could be a key way to encourage health science students to take what they learn and put it into practice in their own lives.