IntroductionResearch on social networks in public health focuses on how social structures and relationships influence health and health-related behaviour. While the sociocentric approach is used to study complete social networks, the egocentric approach is gaining popularity because of its focus on individuals, groups and communities.MethodsOne of the participants of the healthy lifestyle health education workshop ‘I’m moving’, included in the study of social support for exercise was randomly selected. The participant was denoted as the ego and members of her/his social network as the alteri. Data were collected by personal interviews using a self-made questionnaire. Numerical methods and computer programmes for the analysis of social networks were used for the demonstration of analysis.ResultsThe size, composition and structure of the egocentric social network were obtained by a numerical analysis. The analysis of composition included homophily and homogeneity. Moreover, the analysis of the structure included the degree of the egocentric network, the strength of the ego-alter ties and the average strength of ties. Visualisation of the network was performed by three freely available computer programmes, namely: Egonet.QF, E-net and Pajek. The computer programmes were described and compared by their usefulness.ConclusionBoth numerical analysis and visualisation have their benefits. The decision what approach to use is depending on the purpose of the social network analysis. While the numerical analysis can be used in large-scale population-based studies, visualisation of personal networks can help health professionals at creating, performing and evaluation of preventive programmes, especially if focused on behaviour change.
Background: Stress is an inevitable phenomenon of students’ way of life nowadays. In particular, stressors are associated with study obligations and interpersonal relationships. In a time of rapid social changes, the problem of stress among young people is highly dynamic and complicated; therefore, academic studies and research regarding this subject are among the most important tasks of society. Our study aimed to analyse the stress and coping strategies among the students of selected faculties of the University of Ljubljana.Methods: We surveyed 622 students of the first and third year of six faculties of the University of Ljubljana, of which 40.5% were men and 59.6% women. The questionnaire was summarized according to the questionnaire used in the project “Risk Factors for Non-Communicable Diseases in Adult Population of Slovenia” was used in our study. The data were processed with SPSS. The basic statistics were calculated, and the hypotheses were checked at the level of 5% of the statistical risk (p ≤ 0.05) using the Chi-square test.Results: The survey showed that most students (46.8%) feel stress occasionally, 30.4% of them often, and 4.7% every day. The students of the Faculty of Medicine are more affected by stress than other students are, especially in comparison to the students of the Faculty of Sport. Women suffer from stress more than men do. A total of 82.2% of the students claimed the burden of study as the reason for tension, stress and a feeling of heaviness. Among them, most students were from the Faculty of Medicine and the least were from the Faculty of Sport; most of them were women. The students of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and the Faculty of Medicine study and learn continuously. Outside the examination period, 38.5% of students sleep only 5 to 6 hours per day. Only 12.8% of students can easily handle stress, 70% of them handle stress with some effort and 16.5% of them with great effort; among them, students of the third year and men cope with stress better than others do. As a coping strategy, a large majority (72%) of students mention sports activity, mostly students of the Faculty of Sport, and the least students of the Faculty of Education. Only 5.2% of students never engage in sport; most are active in sports from 3 to 5 days a week, from 30 to 60 minutes.Conclusion: The study highlighted the problem of stress and coping with it with students from selected faculties of the University of Ljubljana. The survey has shown a high prevalence of self-reported stress, with the vast majority of students reporting physical activity as the most used method of coping. There were significant differences with the corresponding confidence level 95% in terms of gender and faculty. Further research and the implementation of effective measures could improve the quality of life of students, which would later also contribute to reduced levels of burnout in the workplace, as young people as students would be better aware of this problem and knew the appropriate preventive measures.
Background: Numerous studies have found significant gender differences in health-related behaviour, while a lower number analyse these differences within the gender. The aim of the article is to analyse the differences in individual health-related behaviour indicators among women from different educational groups in Slovenia. Methods: The analysis is based on the CINDI Health Monitor (2008)
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