Abstract

Objectives: In the field of health, procrastination is a relatively new but important issue. Most studies on procrastination deal with academic procrastination while no study, to the best of our knowledge, is available regarding the issue of health-related procrastination. Therefore, the present study was conducted to discover the attributes, causes, and outcomes of the health-related procrastination in nurses. Materials and Methods: This conventional, qualitative, content analysis was conducted on 13 nurses (including 5 males and 8 females with a mean age of 34.76 years) from academic hospitals affiliated with Iran University and Gonabad University of Medical Sciences using a purposive sampling technique. The data were collected from October 2016 to December 2017 through face-to-face semi-structured interviews and field notes. Results: The attributes of procrastination included a gap between intention and action, illogical delays, and delays in doing health tasks. The factors included present-biased and comfort over hardship preferences, risk taking, avoidance behaviors, self-satisfaction, inner tendencies, the nursing job, the nature of the problem, and beliefs. The outcomes included psychological, physical, and social problems. Conclusions: The results of this study provided an in-depth understanding of the concept of health-related procrastination. Thus, the findings can help design health education interventions and promote nurses' health.