Background: Health literacy plays a significant role in determining the overall health of individuals and groups of people. The literature shows that health literacy is closely linked to health-promoting lifestyle of undergraduate students. However, evidence regarding which dimension of health literacy has a greater impact on healthcare undergraduate students’ health-promoting lifestyle is scarce.

Objective: To investigate which dimension(s) of health literacy significantly predict(s) the health promoting-lifestyle of healthcare undergraduate students.

Methods: A cross-sectional design was used. Data were collected from 234 healthcare undergraduate students (Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing, Pharmacy, and applied medical sciences) in Jordan. A demographics questionnaire as well as the Health Literacy Questionnaire (HLQ) and the Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile (HPLP-II) were completed by the students. Bivariate correlations and multiple linear regression analyses were performed.

Results: Male students represented 56% of the sample. Bivariate correlations showed that the nine HLQ scales are positively correlated with students’ HPLP-II total scores (r = .32 to .50, p<.001). In addition, all bivariate correlations of the HLQ scales with the HPLP-II subscales were statistically significant. The results of the regression analysis revealed that the model was statistically significant (F{9, 224} = 11.88, p<.001), with an adjusted R² of .30. Of the nine HLQ scales, three scales significantly contributed to the regression model. These scales are: a) “feeling understood and supported by healthcare providers” (β = .25, t = 2.81, p = .005), b) “actively managing my health” (β = .25, t = 2.49, p = .014), and c) “social support for health” (β = .19, t = 2.76, p = .006).

Discussion and conclusion: These results are consistent with the literature findings regarding the positive correlation between healthcare students’ health literacy and health-promoting lifestyle. In addition, they add insights about the dimensions of health literacy that are responsible for predicting the health-promoting lifestyle of healthcare students. The three statistically significant scales explain around one third of the outcome variance (i.e. healthcare students’ health-promoting lifestyle). Such findings could help designing tailored health literacy interventions to promote the health promotion of healthcare students. Further research among undergraduate students representing other fields of study is warranted.