Health-promoting lifestyle and social support in nursing students

Introduction: The university experience is considered a stage of constant challenges and even more so in ​​health sciences, during which students develop skills, experience, and new knowledge to train professionals. It is alarming to identify that for many, higher education and its demands can become stressful, as they experience changes in lifestyle and relationships that impact their health. Objective: To determine the level of health-promoting lifestyle and social support in university nursing students. Method: Non-experimental, quantitative, descriptive, correlational, and cross-sectional research, with a sample of 318 participants using simple random sampling. The health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile Scale II (HPLP-II) and the Social Support Scale (MOS-SSS) were used as instruments. Results: 84.0 % of university students have an average health-promoting lifestyle, 9.4 % unhealthy, and 6.6 % healthy. Regarding social support, a high level is assumed to exist at 95.5 % (5.0 %). Conclusion: The stress management dimension is highly significant and related to the social support variable. Therefore, it is determined that having better stress management indicates good social support in one's environment (p <0.05).