Abstract:

The problem of responsibility of own health, health of other people, healthy lifestyle and prevention of health-related problems are important topics in modern society as health is determined by both current state of the healthcare system and personal attitudes towards one's health. With  the spread of the covid-19 pandemic, it is becoming more and more relevant to study the attitude to health of various population groups and behavioral practices to maintain a  healthy lifestyle. Nowadays health depends not only on the state of healthcare but also on the psychological characteristics and person's attitudes towards health. Therefore finding differences in health attitudes among various socio-economic and age groups could provide more efficient approaches to health preservation among individuals and in society, which in turn requiring more studies of students' health preservation behavior management in educational organizations from psychological perspective. In this study, psychological characteristics of health and healthy lifestyle attitudes among state university students were studied. Total of 177 participants (49 male and 128 female students aged 18…41) had participated in the study. The article highlights results of these students obtained with Attitude towards health questionnaire (Berezovskaya R.A., 2005) and Violation of healthy behavior questionnaire (Lutzenko E.L. & Gabelkova O.E., 2013). Studying the differences between full-time and extramural university students in attitudes towards health and healthy behavior violations from psychological point of view were the aim of this work. The major question of the study was the effect of educational form on attitude towards health and specific healthy behavior violations, as well as which of these forms has the greatest potential for developing and maintaining healthy behavior of students. The results of comparative analysis of full-time and extramural students are provided. Full-time and extramural students' summary scores of Attitude towards health questionnaire has significant differences of value-motivational, cognitive, emotional & behavioral levels of health attitudes including: set of values, perception of factors for life success achievement, sources of subjective health idea, influence of various factors on health status and feeling of diseases absence. Full-time and extramural students' summary scores of Violation of healthy behavior questionnaire indicate that due to older age the latter has more frequent occurrence of reporting health-related problems, eating disorders, self-destructive behavior and craving for alcohol and tobacco smoking. Based on results of this study, major targets of psychological correction were identified. Psychological and pedagogical recommendations for healthy lifestyle formation for students were provided, with such goals as psychological correction of health preservation behavior among students and discovering students' specifics of healthy lifestyle and its violation with age and education form in mind.