ABSTRACT
Background: Healthy lifestyle is an important element for success, especially for Medical students. It includes lots of items such as physical activity, diet, and sleep which we believe that these three items are the major for a healthy lifestyle. The aim of this study is to evaluate healthy and non-healthy behaviors including physical activity, diet and time devoted to sleep, leisure, stress, and smoking of medical students in Qassim region
Methodology: A cross-sectional study was targeted medical students at Qassim region in different cities [Buraydah and Unizah]. A self-administered questionnaire was used. It included a domain for physical activity, time devoted for sleep, leisure, and smoking
Results: Around 714 medical students participated in this study, 467 [55.3%] males and 247 [44.7%] females. Regarding physical activity, it was found that one-third of the students excise 1-3 times per week. Regarding diet, 31% of students were always eating there breakfast. But, 81.8% were consuming fast food 1 to 6 times weekly. Furthermore, half of the students devoted 4-6 hours only for sleep during school days and during the weekend they sleep 7-9 hours. Time spent on a cell phone, computer, and surfing Internet [for leisure] was more than 4 hours for 32.5% during the week and it increases at the weekend to 51.9%
Conclusions: Lifestyle of the majority of the students were: did not sleep enough, did not exercise, consumed fast food, and spent much time in usage of a cellphone, which are common habits among medical students of both genders. These habitats had a significant impact on their overall satisfaction of life and may affect their academic performance and general health
ABSTRACT
Background: Smoking is a worldwide problem that kills millions of people. Women smoke much lower than males but the numbers of smoker women are growing up. The objectives of this study were to assess the prevalence of smoking and khat chewing in medical and non-medical female students at University of Science and Technology [UST], Sana'a, Yemen
Methods: We used self-administrated questionnaire to collect cross-sectional data from a randomly selected sample of medical and non-medical female students of UST in 2012-2013. Overall, 480 students completed and returned the questionnaire, medical students represented 50% of them
Results: The prevalence of smoking was significantly low among female medical students [P=0.045], however, not significantly difference was found between medical and non-medical female students in khat chewing habits [P=0.083]. Non-smoker medical female students who tried smoking [45.6%] were significantly lower than non-medical students [54.4%], and curiosity was the main reason for trying smoking. Water pipe was the most common type of smoking among smoker students [78.6%]. Out of 26 female students who smoke and chew khat, 18 students reported that they smoke more while they chew khat
Conclusions: Our study highlights the need for increased health education, awareness, and knowledge of the risks of smoking and particularly khat chewing to reduce these habits among female university students especially in non-medical female students