The Effect of Health Habit-based Intervention Program on Self-care and Self-efficacy of Nursing Students

Students have many problems in their various dimensions of self-care and self-efficacy. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of health habit-based intervention on self-care and self-efficacy of nursing students. The present study was a semi-experimental design with pretest-posttest with control group. Sixty nursing students were randomly assigned to two intervention and control groups. For data collection, the "Dossey & Keygan Self-Care Scale" and "General Self-Efficacy Scale" Sherrer et al were used. Validity and reliability of "Self-care scale of Dossey and Keegan" were determined by the face validity, content validity index and content validity ratio and its reliability was determined by Alpha-Cronbach's coefficient. Validity and reliability of the Persian version “Self-Efficacy Scale” have been confirmed in previous studies. The intervention group was run for 6 weeks for the intervention group. Six sessions of support and follow-up consultation were conducted at the student dormitory student counseling center. There was no intervention for the control group. Questionnaires were completed by both groups before and after the intervention. Data was analyzed in SPSS software version 19. The difference in mean of total self-care score and self-efficacy in the two intervention and control groups was not statistically significant (P > 0.005) before intervention. But after the intervention, the difference in mean of self-care score in physical, mental and interest dimensions, as well as the mean score of self-efficacy, was statistically significant (P < 0.001). The health habit-based intervention program was able to increase student’s self-care in areas such as physical, mental, and interest as well as self-efficacy. It is recommended that this intervention be applied for undergraduate nursing courses in all universities.