Health-promoting Lifestyle and Predicting Anxiety Caused by COVID-19 In Medical Sciences Students

In recent years, the COVID-19 pandemic has altered the daily lives of people around the globe and caused significant mortalities and public health issues. The objective of the current study was to determine the role of health-promoting behaviors in predicting anxiety caused by COVID-19 in Shahroud University of Medical Sciences students in 2022.

This cross-sectional study included 350 students from various medical sciences who were chosen through a multi-stage stratified random sampling process. We gathered the necessary information by administering health-promoting lifestyle and COVID-19-related anxiety questionnaires. This inventory has 18 items and is scored on a 4-point Likert scale. The range score is between 0 and 54. The data were analyzed by ANOVA, Chi-square, and Pearson's correlation coefficient. All tests have a significance level of 0.05.

Based on lifestyle questionnaire scores, 51 students (15%) had a poor lifestyle, 272 (79.8%) had an average lifestyle, and 18 (5.3%) had a good lifestyle. Anxiety averaged 6.20±6.18, and health-promoting lifestyle averaged 123.64±19.05. Health-promoting lifestyle did not correlate with COVID-19 anxiety. Stress management, nutrition, and physical activity scored the lowest. Academic semester (p=0.03), family income (p=0.006), and marital status (p=0.03) were associated with COVID-19 anxiety.

Students had low COVID-19 anxiety and average health-promoting lifestyles. Despite initial concerns, the data showed no significant association between COVID-19 anxiety and the students' vaccination status. However, it's worth noting that vaccination has the potential to reduce anxiety among students. Stress management, nutrition, and physical activity can improve student lifestyles.