self-care behaviors and influential factors among nurses working in the hospitals of tehran

Background: nurses' self-care assessment and elimination of obstacles with appropriate interventions will have a great impact on their own health as well as the recipients of health services. this study was designed to evaluate self-care status among nurses in selected hospitals in tehran, iran. methods: this cross-sectional study was carried out on 310 nurses working in tehran university of medical sciences hospitals. data were collected by a questionnaire with 70 questions that was conducted to evaluate the health level in five dimensions. data were analyzed by using the statistical tests of manova and pearson’s correlation. results: the average scores of nurses' self-care in men and women were 244.1 and 245.3, respectively. the highest average score was for the supportive relationships dimension. there was a significant relationship between gender and self-care dimensions (p-value = 0.077). the average scores of self-care for nurses working in the emergency department, general department, surgical department, intensive care unit, and other sectors were 238.5, 247, 240.6, 245.6 and 251.1, respectively. there was a positive relation between supportive relationships dimension, age, and years of employment. in addition, there was a negative relation between the number of children and supportive relationships dimension (p-value < 0.05). conclusion: this study showed that self-care among nurses in the hospitals of tehran university of medical sciences was moderately high, in a good and acceptable situation. however, there were poor scores in some areas and further study of the nurses’ self-care and its promoting strategies is still required.