title: Health promoting Behaviors Among Adolescents: A Cross-sectional Study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Health maintenance and promotion are the fundamental prerequisites to community development. The best time for establishing healthy lifestyle habits is during adolescence.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  Due to importance of health promotion behaviors in adolescents, this study was conducted to investigate health-promoting behaviors and its associated factors among high school students in Rasht, Iran.
  
  
  METHODS
  A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted on 424 students during the first semester of the year 2012. We employed the multistage sampling design to recruit from private and public high schools in Rasht, Iran. The data collection instrument was a self-report questionnaire consisting of two parts. The first part of instrument was consisted of demographic questionnaire and the second part was adolescent health promotion scale (AHPS) questionnaire. AHPS questionnaire was consisted of six dimensions (nutrition, social support, health responsibility, life appreciation, physical activity, and stress management) to measure health promoting lifestyles. Statistical analysis was performed by SPSS 16 software employing ANOVA (analysis of variance) test, t-test, Mann-Whitney, and the Kruskal-Wallis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The score of total Adolescent Health Promotion Scale were 3.58 ± 0.52 (possible range was 1-5). The highest score was in life appreciation dimension (3.99 ± 0.068) and the lowest score was in health responsibility dimension. Moreover, Significant associations were found between the adolescent health promotion Scale with age (P < 0.001), gender (P < 0.003), school grade (P < 0.011), father's educational level (P < 0.045), mother's educational level (P < 0.021), and mother's occupation (P < 0.008).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Female and older students are at higher risk of developing unhealthy lifestyle. Consequently, healthcare providers, health instructors, schoolteachers, and families must pay more attention to these students. Moreover, as most of lifelong healthy and unhealthy lifestyle habits are established during adolescence, developing effective health promotion and disease prevention strategies for adolescents seems crucial.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health (Community Health Nurse), Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, IR Iran.
authors.forename: Azra Sadat
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Musavian
authors.affiliation: Department of Nursing (Community Health Nurse), Guilan University of Medical Sciences, Rasht, IR Iran.
authors.forename: Afsaneh
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pasha
authors.affiliation: Department of Nursing (Community Health Nurse), Guilan University of Medical Sciences, Rasht, IR Iran.
authors.forename: Seyyedeh-Marzeyeh
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Rahebi
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics, Guilan University of Medical Sciences, Rasht, IR Iran.
authors.forename: Zahra
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Atrkar Roushan
authors.affiliation: Department of Midwifery, Guilan University of Medical Sciences, Rasht, IR Iran.
authors.forename: Atefeh
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ghanbari
keywords: Adolescent; Health Promotion; Lifestyle