Comparing health promoting lifestyle behaviors between wellness and traditional residence hall students

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify college students' health-promoting lifestyle behaviors and to identify differences in these behaviors among various groups of university students living in different residence halls. The subjects who participated in this study were students randomly selected from six wellness residence halls and six traditional residence halls. Of the 200 subjects randomly selected from the two groups, 121 (61%) students completed both the pre and posttest Health Promoting Lifestyle Profiles (HPLP). The wellness and traditional residence hall subjects' pre and posttests were not significantly different from each other. As a result of living in residence halls, the subjects' from both wellness and traditional halls scores on the HPLP increased significantly from pre to posttest. Univariate analyses of variance on the separate dependent variables found significant differences between residence halls for health responsibility. Also, as a result of living in residence halls, the subjects (both wellness and traditional hall) health responsibility scores significantly improved from pre to posttest. An analysis of variance was also used to analyze the effects that the demographic variables had on both the wellness and the traditional residence halls' pretest, posttest, and changes within each sample.