The Lifestyle of Saudi Medical Students.

This study was conducted to investigate medical students' lifestyle habits, including sleep quality, eating and drinking patterns, physical activity, and social status. Method: This research project is part two of a multi-institutional cross-sectional observational study conducted among medical students from six medical colleges in Saudi Arabia between September and December 2019. Results: 675 medical students were enrolled electively into the lifestyle study. About half of this number were male students and the majority were aged 18-24 years. Most students (87.6%) slept between 4-8 h a day and over 44% were dissatisfied with their sleep. Only 28.1% had three meals a day; about 40% of them usually or always skipped breakfast. A total of 44% usually or always ate fast food and 44.7% drank 2 L of water per day. Moreover, male students were significantly consuming more fast food than females, p < 0.001. The majority (63.3%) revealed they usually or always drink black coffee daily. Females were significantly more inclined to regular coffee consumption than males, p < 0.001. Only 4.3% exercised for 30 min or more daily. The majority (65%) of the students were introverted; they had few close friends. Yet, 81% were somewhat satisfied or satisfied with their social life. Male students were significantly more satisfied with their social life than females, p = 0.001. Only 4.6% smoked cigarettes daily whereas 7.1% smoked e-cigarettes daily. In contrast, only 0.3% used shisha (hookah) daily. Male medical students were substantially more inclined to e-cigarette use than females (p < 0.001). The top five leisure activities of a medical student were surfing social media (75.9%), watching movies (61.3%), hanging out with friends (58.1%), spending time with their family (55.4%), and browsing the Internet (53.6%). Female medical students were significantly more inclined to surf social media than male medical students, p = 0.022; also, watching movies was preferred for females compared to males, p = 0.006. Conclusion: This study revealed that the majority of these medical students in Saudi Arabia exhibited healthy lifestyles to some extent, and these health-promoting behaviors differed based on sex, especially concerning physical activity and eating patterns. The findings of this study provide relevant information for future actions that will be geared towards effectively decreasing the occurrence of chronic illnesses and improving future doctors' well-being.

Study Habits of Highly Effective Medical Students.

BACKGROUND: Study habits have been the most significant indicator of academic performance and play a unique role in students' academic accomplishment. The study is aiming to determine the most common study habits of highly successful medical students and their relation to academic achievement. METHODS: A cross-sectional observational study was conducted from September to December 2019 among medical students of both gender from six medical colleges in Saudi Arabia. The students answered the standardized questionnaires to study the different learning habits among medical students, including learning prioritization, knowledge retention strategies, motivation, daily hours of studying, study learning resources. RESULTS: Six hundred and seventy-five medical students enrolled themselves electively into the study. The results showed a significant correlation between study habits and students' academic accomplishments. The top ten study habits of highly effective medical students are managing their time effectively, they get rid of interruptions (phone, family, friends) that disrupt their daily work, they use goal-setting to determine their most important activities, their daily study hours is ranging between 3 and 4 hours, they study alone for knowledge retention of medical information, learn from multiple sources and invest in technology with high efficiency, they contribute to the teaching of their peers, they study the main lecture slides with notes when no exam is coming, and they study lecture slides with notes and previous exam questions when preparing for upcoming exams; finally, they maintained motivation for self-gratification and fulfillment of their family dreams. CONCLUSION: This study's outcomes consolidate general study practices that can be credited to learning achievement and expand recognition to inspire less accomplished students by investigating and exploring factors that have enhanced and worked for many accomplished students.