OBJECTIVES : Our aim was to analyze the health behavior and the health status of foreign students in Hungary.

METHODS : In the quantitative, descriptive, cross-sectional researchwe used an online questionnaire (on social media) in English with 13-item of Sense of Coherence Scale in 241 students among 18 to 30 years from abroad. The data were collected from July, 2018 to October, 2018 in SPSS 23.0 version and were analyzed by descriptive statistics (absolute and relative frequency, mean, and standard deviation), Chi-square-test, ANOVA, paired t-test, factor analysis and multiple linear regression.

RESULTS : The average age of respondents was 23.69± 3.56 years, most of them were female (61.4%), lived in Pécs (52.3%) and came from Africa (65.6%). 80.9% of students do physical activity (regularly 44%, sometimes 36.9%), and three times a week. Students slept 6.87± 1.44 hours per day, the Asian respondents slept the most: 7.38±1.16 hours (F=3.14, p=0.02). Medical students slept less (6.58±1.33 hours) than prospective engineers (7.25± 1.59 hours; p=0.02). 36.1% of African students do not drink coffee, while 54.7% of Asian students drink regularly (p<0.001). 79.7% of the African students have never smoked (p=0.03). The average body mass index: 24.1 ±4.45 kg/m². The most common psychosomatic complaints were fatigue and sleep disturbances. European students reported more complaints (16.09/month) than African students (10.27/month, p=0.016). Healthy “nutritionists” reported fewer psychosomatic complaints (F=3.85; p=0.023). Students received an average 56.22±11.28points on the Sense of Coherence Scale. Who had stronger sense of coherence had fewer psychosomatic complaints (r=-0.25, p<0.001). Healthy nutrition had a higher sense of coherence (F=2.54; p=0.040). Students reporting high level of subjective health had fewer psychosomatic complaints (F=16.35, p<0.001), had stronger sense of coherence (F=8.44; p<0.001) and slept more (F=3.06; p=0.049).

CONCLUSIONS : With our results we would like to draw students' attention to positive health behavior.