Influence of Family Communication and Family Function to their Body Mass Index among Medical Students / 의료커뮤니케이션

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Association between obesity and family communication was a controversial issue in previous studies. Previous studies were done on adolescents and adults in overall. This study was done to figure out association between obesity of medical school students specifically and their family function including communication and to help them on the treatment of obese patients.METHODS: A self-reported questionnaire was filled in by 97 medical school students in Busan. They were asked to answer forty different questions including their height and weight. Association between BMI and family communication was studied using FACE III, Family APGAR and KOBES.RESULTS: Among 97 correspondents, 30 of them were found to be overweight to obese. There was a significant difference in number of siblings, amount of food intake, meal time and recent weight reduction trial among overweight-obese group and normal group. The mean Family APGAR score of normal group was higher than overweight-obese group. Flexibility and connectivity score in FACE III of normal group was also higher than overweight-obese group. Among all the factors considered, recent weight reduction trial was the only factor that was statistically significant in accordance with normal weight.CONCLUSION: There was significant relation between flexibility and connectivity of family function with overweight and obesity. In order to investigate further relation and significance on separate gender, larger study samples are needed. Future studies are suggested regarding gender differences on relationship between overweight-obesity and family function in medical school students.