Background
The changes generated in the studentś lifestyle due to the academic demands, may favour the prevalence of risk factors for non-communicable diseases as well as compromise other domains of their life. The purpose of this study was to establish the prevalence of behavioural risk factors in students of the Professional in Physical Activity and Sports program of a University in Bucaramanga, Colombia.
Methods
A cross-sectional study with a sample of 189 students was conducted. The students were surveyed with the first step of the STEPs questionnaire, which evaluates the behavioural risk factors for non-communicable diseases. A descriptive data analysis was performed, and Pearson tests were applied to determine the correlation between the analysed variables with a level of significance α = 0.05 using STATA 13.0.
Results
80% of the participants were men. The age average was 22.7 ± 3.85 years. Regarding tobacco use, 10.1% of the participants were current smokers, while 30% smoked before. The majority of the participants (92.2%) have consumed alcohol within the past 12 months, while 69.8% consumed alcohol within the last month, with 8.7% of hazardous drinking. Concerning the diet, only 24.9% met the recommended consumption of fruits and vegetables per day. When assessing physical activity levels, only 6.3% were classified as physically inactive. Additionally, an average of 6 hours of sedentary behaviour was found, with 31.2% of excessive sedentary time. A weak correlation was found between age and academic cycle with the amount of physical activity at work (r = 0.24), (r = 0.18) and with sedentary time (r = -0.28), (-0, 32).
Conclusions
Although the prevalence of tobacco consumption was slightly higher than the national average, the students showed a lower prevalence of behavioural risk factors than the general population. However, it is necessary to promote strategies aimed at the control and prevention of these risk factors.
Key messages
Being a student of a program focused on physical activity and sport, can behave as a protective factor against the most prevalent risk factors in university life. It is necessary to implement more strategies centred on making students aware of the importance of the maintenance and improvement of their lifestyles in accordance with their professional profile.
Objetivo Describir la prevalencia de factores de riesgo de tipo metabólico en estudiantes universitarios latinoamericanos a través de una revisión sistemática.Metodología Se realizó una revisión sistemática de artículos en las bases de datos electrónicas de SciELO, PubMed y Google Académico. La búsqueda incluyó referencias publicadas a partir del año 2006 en idiomas español, portugués e inglés que describieran prevalencias de los factores de riesgo mencionados en población universitaria latinoamericana.Resultados Un total de 245 referencias fueron recuperadas, de las cuales 60 fueron seleccionados para su análisis. Los estudiantes universitarios en Latinoamérica presentaron una prevalencia de factores de riesgo metabólicos que, en algunos casos, fue similar a la de la media poblacional en general.Conclusiones Es necesario que la comunidad universitaria y los Gobiernos latinoamericanos planteen estrategias que promuevan estilos de vida saludables tendientes a reducir la adquisición de conductas de riesgo durante la vida universitaria.
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