Introduction:

The incidence of non-communicable chronic diseases among younger populations is on the rise. Self-perception of self-care capacity is a beginning point to develop abilities and skills to address the own care.

Objective:

To identify the level of self-perception of self-capacity to prevent non-communicable chronic diseases among newly enrolled university students in order to establish strategies which convey a better understanding of this population’s health.

Methods:

This is a quantitative, descriptive, transversal, and analytic study which used a random sample gathered by finite populations calculation. The Identification instrument on the capacity of self-care regarding chronic-degenerative diseases, sexual-reproductive health, and addiction prevention was administered. A descriptive and analytic analysis calculating parametric and non-parametric tests was carried out.

Results:

Self-perception on self-capacity showed to be very good in 8% of the sample, good in 54%, fair in 36%, and poor in 2%. The differences between the knowledge level and the self-perception level were significant (p=0.025). Students enrolled in Medicine had the highest mean score.

Discussion:

The main results of this study reflect agreement with other studies assessing the dimension of self-perception; nevertheless, a clear gap between perceived self-care and performed self-care, still remains.

Conclusions:

It is necessary to promote healthy lifestyles among university students in order to enhance their health self-perception and consequent self-care.