Relationship Between Social Capital and Health-promoting Lifestyle in Nursing Students

Background: Health-promoting lifestyle as an important factor in psychological and physical well-being improves the quality of life. A health-centered approach to life can be facilitated through several social components, such as social and cultural capital. This study aimed to determine the relationship between social capital and the health-promoting lifestyle of nursing students. Methods: It was a descriptive correlational study. A total number of 200 undergraduate nursing students of Iran University of Medical Sciences were recruited using stratified proportional to size sampling. Also, data were collected by the Walker health-promotion lifestyle profile-II and the Onyx and Bullen social capital questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive statistics, the t test, the analysis of variance, and the Pearson correlation coefficient, in SPSS V. 20. Results: The mean scores of social capital and health-promoting lifestyle was 2.44 and 2.47, respectively. Social capital was significantly associated with the health-promoting lifestyle (P 0.001). Moreover, economic status was significantly correlated with social capital (P=0.004). Also, a significant relationship was observed between employment status and health-promoting lifestyle (P=0.002). Conclusion: As a step toward having healthy nursing students, the officials, educational policymakers, and faculty members are suggested to take appropriate interventions to promote their social capital.