ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to examine the health promoting behaviors and associated factors among patients who visited a health promotion center to receive nursing counseling. A cross-sectional survey and convenience sampling were applied in this study. Four hundred visitors to a medical center in northern Taiwan participated in the investigation. The results showed that: (1) The majority of participants were female, working, married, had a mean age of 41.5 years old, and were educated to college level. More than half of them had a religious belief, and most of them did not smoke, chew betel nut or drink alcohol; nearly one-third were overweight or obese. (2) Among the 40 items, there were nine behaviors categorized as high frequency, e.g. eating breakfast, maintaining good relationships etc. Four behaviors were categorized as low frequency, e.g. discuss with health personnel, check pulse rate when I do exercise, etc. (3) The demographic characteristics showed that those who worked, were married, more than 40 years old, and did not smoke had significantly higher scores on health promoting behaviors than their counterpart group. (4) The regression analysis showed that the higher the frequency of eating breakfast, the higher the age group, and the higher the educational level, and that unemployment explained the total variance of 14.6% in health promoting behavior. These findings will be an important reference for the implementation of health promoting programs for hospital visitors.
