Support Nurse Health with Walking

Nurses are essential to fostering patients’ healthy lifestyle behaviors, including eating a healthy diet, exercising, and reducing alcohol and tobacco use. However, many nurses fail to adopt these behaviors for themselves. According to Priano and colleagues, between 60% and 74% of American nurses put their health at risk because of a lack of adequate activity.

To help current and future nurses embrace healthy lifestyle behaviors, the nursing faculty and students at the University of South Alabama College of Nursing joined forces to develop an 8-week structured walking program.

The walking program—which consisted of three 30-minute walking sessions per week on the university’s campus—was created by a team of nursing faculty. The team scheduled varying times to encourage participation, with at least one session scheduled during lunch hours and one after business hours on different days each week.

Participants reported statistically significant improvement (p≤0.05) in their motivation to participate in social exercise activities (p=0.045) and enhanced exercise stamina (p=0.033).