Assessment of the health of medical students

Abstract

Human health, in addition to social and spiritual well-being, is determined by its physical condition, which reflects the functional capabilities of the body, features of physical development and ensures working capacity in any activity, including academic workload, which is extremely important for students in higher educational institutions. The purpose of the study is to assess the health status of students at the School of Biomedicine of the Far Eastern Federal University. Material and methods. The health status of 184 medical students (147 young women and 37 young men) was assessed using a sociological survey (questionnaire) and a study of the component composition of the body using bioimpedancemetry. Results. The low physical activity, detected in 68% of students and bad habits (smoking tobacco) have been established to negatively affect students’ health. Among smokers, 75% of students live in dormitories on the university campus. According to the results of bioimpedancemetry, significant deviations from the age norm were noted in terms of body mass index (BMI) (50% of cases) and fat mass (FM) (71% of cases). Significant gender differences in the individual components of the body were not identified. Discussion. The most aggressive factors that significantly affect the health of students are unbalanced nutrition, lack of compliance with the regime of study and rest, lack of sleep and stay in the fresh air, lack of physical activity, lack of motivation for a healthy lifestyle. Significant deviations in BMI and FM, identified by bioimpedancemetry, indicate the risks of developing arterial hypertension, metabolic syndrome, and nutritional status disorders. Medical students need to give recommendations for increasing motor activity and changing diet. Conclusion. The results of the study can be used in the future to determine the functional state of students and develop preventive measures to preserve the health of medical students.

Features of the first-year students’ lifestyle at the faculty of medicine: an observational study

“…More than half of the students surveyed by us consider the high workload of studies as the reason preventing the PA, and 10.7% admit that they have no motivation to do it. The same results are obtained in a number of studies conducted in other regions [13,14,17,20,27]. Researchers believe that high educational loads lead to the fact that a significant part of students have reduced motivation for physical self-development, often there is no free time, motivation, and a convincing example for rational behavior [7].…”

“…It is noteworthy that one-fifth of our respondents do not engage in any type of PA. The low PA of the students is indicated by studies conducted in various regions of this country [7,9,13,14,17,20,27]. At the same time, only 1% of the students surveyed have indicated physical inactivity as a circumstance preventing a healthy lifestyle.…”

“…The contradiction lies in the fact that an imbalance between the intensity of training loads and their free time can lead to the formation of behavioral habits with an expected negative impact on their health [15,16,17]. Studies devoted to the study of the lifestyle in medical students have shown that the students generally keep an unhealthy lifestyle with some differences in their lifestyle components, gender, courses of their study and areas of their occupational training [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25]. Therefore, of particular scientific and practical interest is an identification and an analysis of some factors influencing the formation of a healthy lifestyle for future medical doctors at the initial stage of their study at a university.…”