Abstract

The medical school has often been perceived as physically, mentally and emotionally demanding. This produces stress both physical and psychological stress on the medical students, predisposing them to engaging in behaviors that are inimical to their health. The present study investigated how risky health behaviors among medical students of a teaching hospital in Nigeria could be predicted by emotional stability and health-related risk perception. The study adopted a correlational design. Two hundred and eighty (280) participants were purposively and randomly selected, and data were obtained via a structured questionnaire. The results revealed a significant negative relationship between health-related risk perception and engagement in risky health behaviors (r=0.363, P<.01), accounting for 13% (r2= 0.362) variance in risky health behaviours. This implies that students who perceived higher risk on the job while under training, engaged less in risky health behaviours and vice versa. There was no significant relationship between emotional stability and risky health behaviours (r=.110, p>.05). But emotional stability and health-related risk perception jointly predicted risky health behaviour (R2=.140, F (2,276) =22.44, p<.01), with only health-related risk perception (β=.358, P<.01) contributing significantly. Other results showed that male medical students (x=21.91) engaged in higher level of risky health behaviors than their female counterpart (x=19.34). The need to understand medical students’ risky health behaviours and the role of risk perception is evident for the selection and training of medical personnel. Parents, guardians, and career counselors should be guided on the importance of health-related risk perception in determining engagement in risky health behaviours among medical students.

Keywords: Emotional Stability; Health-related risk perception; Risky health behaviours; Medical students