“COMPARISON OF HEALTH STATUS AMONG DAY SCHOLARS AND HOSTELLERS IN A PRIVATE NURSING COLLEGE”

Abstract

Background: Nursing students are an essential part of any country's future, and their academic success is of utmost importance. The quality of their living and health conditions plays a significant role in their ability to excel in their studies, whether they are living in hostels or commuting daily. This study aimed to compare the health conditions of nursing students living in hostels and those commuting daily to determine the impact of their living environment on their overall well-being and educational performance.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was undertaken with 200 undergraduate nursing students from Ziauddin University Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery (ZUFONAM) where candidates were randomly chosen using a basic sampling approach. This study lasted from July to August 2023. For data analysis, SPSS version 22.0 was used. Continuous variables were displayed as Mean ± SD, and categorical variables were represented in percentages and frequencies. To examine the relationship between hostellers and day scholars, inferential statistics like Chi-square, Fisher Exact, and Pearson Correlation tests were employed.

Results: The participants consisted of 55% females and 45% males, according to demographic data. The majority of the participants (87.5%) reported having moderate health status. However, there was a significant association observed between health status, age, and gender. The outcomes exhibited that hostellers had a quite higher health status score (32.45±4.48) analogized to day scholars (30.8±4.28), with a p-value of 0.008. This alludes that there is a noteworthy difference in the hosteller's health status and day scholars.

Conclusion: In a nutshell, the study findings reported that generally, hostellers have significantly better health status compared to day scholars.

Keywords: Hostellers, Day scholars, Health Status