The Level of Health Behaviors Among Palestinian University Students in West Bank

This current study aims to recognize the health behavior of the Nongovernmental Palestinian university students (An-Najah, Al-Quds, Bir-Zeit, Bethlehem and Arab-American university in Jenin) during the academic year 2001/2002 and the effect of variables Such as university, gender, the students' educational level, the students' cumulative average and parents' education on the level of health behavior. For this purpose, the researcher has proposed a questionnaire based on the survey of instruments in the field of health awareness such as (1999). The sample of the study, which was randomly chosen and personal interview —dependent, consisted of (1057) students (529) males and (528) females and formed (5%) of study population. Finding of our study showed that the level of health behavior of the student on total score was moderate (67.4%). Very high level of health behavior among students was only on smoking and alcohol domain (82%). The level of health behavior students was moderate on the following domain (nutrition (68.4%), managing stress (67.8%), and medical care (69.4%)). The level of health behavior among students was very low only on physical fitness domain (49.8%). The study showed that there were differences of statistical significance at the value (α=0.05) among the variables are that the result revealed, according to the university variable. That all differences were in favor of Arab-American University. Results, according to gender variables, showed that gender variable was, in all domains and total score between male and female students, in favor of female students, while in case of physical fitness domain it was in favor of male students. The College variable between scientific and humanity college was in favor of scientific college. Results also showed that all differences, according to cumulative average, were in favor of the higher cumulative average. The variables of fathers' and mothers' educational level revealed that differences were in favor of the higher education.(For fathers and mothers). Recommendations of this study, according to what the Researcher found, are to teach obligatory courses that take into consideration health awareness among college students and conducting other studies adopting other variable the researcher didn't use.