Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate degree of the health promoting behavior and self-esteem of nursing college students, and to ide tify the relationship between self-esteem and the health promoting behavior. The sample consisted of 122 college nursing students and 100 university nursing student The instruments for this study were structured questionnaire which included health promoting behavior practice level(60 items), self-esteem(10), sociodemographic characteristics (10). Data were collected from September 14 to September 28, 1998 and analyzed by SAS rogram t-test, ANOVA, Pearson correlation coefficient, and multiple regreacion. The results of this study are as follows : 1. The results of the comparison between the two groups were not significantly different for self-esteem and health promoting behavior and socio-demographic characteristics. The average score for the health promoting behavior was high 162.5(total 240). and self-esteem was high, too 30.5(total 40). In the subcategories the highest practice level was "personal hygiene(3.30)", and the lowest level was "health management(1.57)". 2. Health promoting behavior was significantly correlated with self-esteem(r = .4970, p= .0001). 3. Self-esteem was the main factor predicting health promoting behavior and accounted for 24. 69% among variance. 4. There was a statistically significant the difference on health promoting behavior according to "personality"(t=2.58, p=.0l06), "residence pattern"(F=2.90, p=.0360) and on self-esteem according to "religion"(t=-2.20, p=.0291) and, "personality"(t = 4.40, p= .0001). In conclusion, there was not a significant difference between those of college nursing students and university nursing students on self-esteem and the health promoting behavior. Self-esteem correlated with health promoting behavior positively, and was identified to be an important variable that contributed to health promoting behavior.