A comparison of the health practices of nursing and liberal arts majors at Salisbury State College
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Date
1988
Department
Nursing
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Abstract
The purpose of this study was to describe and compare the health practices
of Nursing students and Liberal Arts students in six areas, smoking, alcohol use,
exercise, weight control, seat-belt use, and hours of sleep per night. The study
population consisted of a convenience sample of 82 Salisbury State students, 55 of
whom were Nursing majors and 27 of whom were History, English, and
Philosophy majors. A descriptive research design was used for this investigation. Demographic
data and data on health practices were collected using the Health Risk Assessment
(HRA) questionnaire from the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia. An
additional page was added to the HRA questionnaire by the researcher ascertaining
academic major, grade point average (GPA), year in school, and place of residence.
Subjects who were not junior and senior female students, under twenty five, in any
of the above majors were excluded from the study sample. Demographic analysis
showed that the study samples were similar with respect to race, residence, and
GPA. Chi-square analysis indicated that Nursing students in this sample abstained
significantly more often from smoking (X²= 14.44, df=1, p=0.0007). Although
there was no statistically significant difference in alcohol use, Chi-square analysis
revealed that there was a tendency toward less use of alcohol on the part of the
Nursing students compared to the Liberal Arts students (X²=3.6638, df=1, p=0.0556). There were no statistically significant differences found between the two
groups in exercise habits, weight control, seat-belt use, or nighttime hours of sleep.
Because the results of the study are not well-supported in the literature,
further investigation is needed to ascertain health practices of college students in
general and of nursing students in particular.