Journal of Community Medicine & Health Education
Open Access

Abstract

Background: Health is defined by a physical, social, cultural and economic environment where people live and work. Drugs including drug consumption, especially tobacco and alcohol, unhealthy diet and lack of physical activity constitute an important portion of the deaths and illnesses that occur in many regions healthy lifestyle mandatory for having the nearest area to optimal health. Students in the medical field should be on the way of healthy behaviors which should be equal in both males and females. Finally, to the author’s knowledge, it seems that scientific research aimed to compare and identify healthy habits among university students, taking into account their gender and chosen an academic discipline, are less frequent, especially in Saudi Arabia Thus, the aim of the present study is to assess the lifestyle of university students. Aim: ascertain gender differences in healthy habits if they exist. Methodology: A random sample of 2068 medical students (1024 males and 1044 females) was selected from the faculty of medicine of five universities, Saudi Arabia using a descriptive cross-sectional approach. The sample was selected using two-stage stratified cluster sampling technique with stratification based on student gender. A self-administered questionnaire containing the socio-demographic data of the respondent and their different lifestyle aspects (nutrition, smoking habits, physical activities and sleeping data) was used for data collection. Results: The study included 2068 medical students whose ages ranged from 17 to 29 years old with a mean age of 21.9 ± 1.9 years while 49.5% of the included students were males. About 98.1% of the male students believe in the importance of having healthy lifestyle compared to 98.4% of the females. Also, 80.8% of the male students agreed in differences between males and females regarding concept towards healthy lifestyle compared to 74.6% of the female students. Conclusions & recommendations: The current research proved that there is a general shortage in adopting healthy lifestyle among medical students especially for smoking and nutritional behaviors and also there are significant differences between male and female students regarding many aspects of healthy behavior.

Biography

Almohannad Saleh has completed his bachelor of Medicine and Surgery at the age of 24 years from King Khalid University, Abha, Saudi Arabia. He has published 7 papers in reputed journals.

E-mail: almohannad94@gmail.com