Relationship between healthy lifestyles awareness, health perception and mental well-being: A cross-sectional study on thermal tourism service recipients

This study aims to reveal the levels and determinants of awareness, health perception and mental well-being of individuals receiving services in thermal facilities in Türkiye. The study was cross-sectional. The data were collected through face-to-face interviews between November 1, 2023 and January 30, 2024 from individuals receiving services in thermal facilities in Samsun and Kütahya provinces. A questionnaire form consisting of 4 sections was used to collect the data. The form consisted of personal information, healthy living awareness, health perception and mental well-being. As a result of the study, 388 questionnaire forms were analyzed. 38.4% of the participants were between the ages of 60-69 and 57.5% were female. There was a statistically significant difference between age, marital status, chronic disease, health perception, healthy living awareness and mental well-being. The mean value of the health perception of the participants was X̄=2.86 before thermal and X̄=3.24 after thermal. A statistically significant, positive and strong relationship was found between healthy living awareness, mental well-being and health perception (r>0.500, p<0.01) as a result of correlation analysis. Multiple regression analysis revealed that health perception and healthy life awareness predicted mental well-being (p<0.01). The most important result of the study was that mental well-being increased as health perception and healthy life awareness increased. The other important result of the study is that the level of health perception, healthy life awareness and mental well-being decreases as age increases. In addition to healthy life awareness and mental well-being, those with chronic diseases had lower levels of health perception.