Healthy dietary habits, body mass index, and predictors among nursing students, northeast Thailand.

This study aimed to assess body mass index (BMI) of nursing students, and examine the links between health behavior in terms of healthy dietary habits, positive health habits, dieting and BMI. A structured questionnaire was used for obtaining information on dietary habits, positive health habits, demographic characteristic including body weight, and height by administering self-answering questionnaires to all of nursing students in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th year-classes of the College of Nursing located in northeast Thailand. Three hundred and eleven female nursing students with an average age of 19.9 (SD = 1.4), had an average BMI of 20.3 kg/m2 (SD = 1.9). Most of the subjects (82.6%) were in the acceptable weight category (BMI > 18.5-24.99 kg/m2), 5.1% underweight (BMI < or = 18.5 kg/m2), and 2.3% overweight. (BMI > or = 25.0 kg/m2). About half of them (50.8-66.2%) practiced healthy dietary habits in terms of avoiding eating fat/cholesterol, enriched fiber foods, while one-fourth practiced daily fruit consumption. Positive health habits in terms of having breakfast, and taking exercise over the last two weeks, were practiced by 49.5% and 59.8%, respectively. Persistent health problem occurred 13.5% amongst the subjects. The univariate analyses revealed significant associations between dieting with the BMI; perception of body size with the BMI; the enriched fiber food consumption with dieting; and the avoidance of fat/cholesterol with dieting. It suggests that the choice of food was predominantly attributable to dieting. Results from multiple logistic regression analysis showed that dietary belief, dieting, and exercise had effects on the strength of the association (p = 0.0191, 0.0024, 0.0165; Odds ratios = 0.97, 2.21, 1.87, respectively). The results and implications are discussed.

Cornell Medical Index: a comparative study on health problems among Thai and Japanese nursing students.

Cross cultural differences in subjective physical and psychological health problems reported on the Cornell Medical Index (CMI) Thai and Japanese versions were conducted among Thai and Japanese female first year class nursing students from two nursing colleges. All of the Thai (114) and 96.2% (102) of the Japanese subjects self-administered the CMI. The internal consistency reliability of each CMI was acceptable. Mean ages of the Thai and the Japanese subjects were 19.3 (SD = 0.8) and 18.4 (SD = 0.5) years respectively, which was not significantly different. Mean CMI for the physical, psychological and overall health complaints of the Thai subjects were 29.8 (SD = 13.5), 14.5 (SD = 8.0), and 41.3 (SD = 19.3) respectively, and those for the Japanese subjects were 15.7 (SD = 11.8), 7.3 (SD = 6.1), and 23.1 (SD = 15.9) respectively, which were significantly different. Findings indicate that the Thai nursing students have more health problems than the Japanese subjects. These mostly concerned respiratory, cardiovascular, digestive, musculoskeletal, nervous, genitourinary systems, fatigability, frequency of illnesses, miscellaneous diseases, mood and feeling patterns, sensitivity, anger and tension. The only one section that the Japanese reported significantly higher health problems than the Thai subjects concerned daily living habits pertaining to questions concerning such matters as drinking, smoking, exercise, sleeping and rest. Percentages of emotional disturbances or neurotic tendencies of the subjects using the conventional CMI score and the Fukamachi criteria are discussed.