Thesis (MSc) - Cyprus International University. Institute of Graduate Studies and Research Nursıng Department

According to WHO: inadequate diet, alcohol, and tobacco use, and insufficient exer-cise account for more than 80% of the total amount of premature NCD deaths in the world. Managing unhealthy lifestyle choices that may lead to NCDs is an effective way to reduce NCD-related deaths worldwide. The young population is generally per-ceived to be healthy, therefore, sufficient efforts have not been directed toward their health assessment, lifestyle modification, and disease prevention. This study seeks to determine the frequencies of the modifiable behavioral risk factors of NCDs among international students of the faculty and school of health sciences, faculty of engineer-ing, and the institute of graduate and research studies, and to explore the relationship between receiving education in health-related fields and adhering to healthy lifestyle behaviors. A cross-sectional method and a descriptive research design were applied. In an attempt to determine the relationship between the hypothesis and the phenomena, a quantitative research method was addressed. 343 international students from the fac-ulty and school of health sciences and the faculty of engineering responded to the HBI-20 questionnaire and the socio-demographic questionnaire that were used as data col-lection tools. Kolmogorov Smirnov and Shapiro-Wilk were used for normality testing. Mann Whitney U was used to compare two variables, Kruskal Wallis H test was used to compare three or more variables and for post hoc analysis, Scheffe's Test was used. The findings of this study indicate that females had better preventive care habits than males (p=0.010). Married participants had poorer preventive care and overall un-healthy lifestyle behaviors than those who were unmarried (p=.001). Respondents who lived alone had poor preventive care (p = 0.002) habits and overall unhealthy lifestyle behaviors (p = 0.005). Second-year students had inadequate anger and stress manage-ment behaviors (p =0.006). The findings of this study led to the conclusion that un-healthy lifestyle behaviors are common among the participants, and it suggests that effective lifestyle modification interventions are needed to prevent NCDs.