Health Promoting Behaviors among Reproductive Age Women in Serbia: The Results from a National Health Survey.

Background: Certain lifestyle characteristics, such as dietary patterns, physical activity, and maintenance of recommended body weight, low-risk alcohol consumption and non-smoking are associated with the lower likelihood for the development of chronic-non communicable disease in the general population. These lifestyles are called health promoting behaviors (HPBs). We aimed to examine the prevalence of the HPBs among the women of reproductive age in Serbia and the factors associated with the compliance with four or more of these behaviors.

Methods: The study was the secondary analysis of the data from the National Health survey in Serbia from 2019 that examined social, health status, mental health (using PHQ-8) and lifestyle characteristics of the general population in Serbia.

Results: The prevalence of compliance with four or more HPBs was 22%. Among the HPBs the most frequent was a non-risky alcohol consumption reported by 2585 participants (99.2%), followed by normal weight (2018-69.2%) and non-smoking (1469-69%), daily fruit and vegetables intake (969-33.2%) and sufficient aerobic PA (216-7.9%). Multivariate logistic regression analysis with four or more HPBs as an outcome variable showed that the association of compliance with four or more HPBs with tertiary education (OR 1.91, 95% CI: 1.32-2.76) use of prescription medications (OR: 0.62, 95% CI: 0.44-0.87) and score on PHQ-8 (OR: 0.88, 95% CI: 0.79-0.98).

Conclusion: There is a need for deeper promotion of health-related behaviors among all educational and vocational groups, including health promotion activities at the primary health care level, which is available to the entire population.