Health Promoting Lifestyle Behaviors in Menopausal Women: A Cross-Sectional Study

BACKGROUND: Determining health promoting lifestyle behaviors of age-specific groups of women provides valuable information for designing health promotion intervention programs. Hence the present study was conducted to assess health promoting lifestyle behaviors in menopausal women. METHODS: The present descriptive cross-sectional study examined health promoting lifestyle behaviors in 400 menopausal women admitted to health care centers in Neka city-north of Iran-from March 2015 to July 2015. Health promoting lifestyle behaviors were evaluated using a demographic characteristics form and the Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile II (HPLP II) through simple convenience sampling. Data were analyzed in SPSS version 18 using descriptive and inferential statistics at the significance level of P<0.05. RESULTS: The mean score of participants’ health promoting lifestyle behaviors was 136.43±19.61, ranging from 88 to 194. The logistic regression test revealed women’s health promoting lifestyle behaviors to be significantly related to their place of residence (P=0.009, odds ratio=1.73) and their spouse’s level of education (P=0.027, odds ratio=0.58). The Pearson correlation test showed significant relationships between mean score of the six sub-scale of health promoting lifestyle behaviors with each other (P<0.001). CONCLUSION: These findings have implications for addressing the role of men to promote health promoting lifestyle behaviors among rural menopausal women.