The Lifestyle of Saudi Medical Students

Abstract

This study was conducted to investigate medical students’ lifestyle habits, including sleep quality, eating and drinking patterns, physical activity, and social status. Method: This research project is part two of a multi-institutional cross-sectional observational study conducted among medical students from six medical colleges in Saudi Arabia between September and December 2019. Results: 675 medical students were enrolled electively into the lifestyle study. About half of this number were male students and the majority were aged 18–24 years. Most students (87.6%) slept between 4–8 h a day and over 44% were dissatisfied with their sleep. Only 28.1% had three meals a day; about 40% of them usually or always skipped breakfast. A total of 44% usually or always ate fast food and 44.7% drank 2 L of water per day. Moreover, male students were significantly consuming more fast food than females, p < 0.001. The majority (63.3%) revealed they usually or always drink black coffee daily. Females were significantly more inclined to regular coffee consumption than males, p < 0.001. Only 4.3% exercised for 30 min or more daily. The majority (65%) of the students were introverted; they had few close friends. Yet, 81% were somewhat satisfied or satisfied with their social life. Male students were significantly more satisfied with their social life than females, p = 0.001. Only 4.6% smoked cigarettes daily whereas 7.1% smoked e-cigarettes daily. In contrast, only 0.3% used shisha (hookah) daily. Male medical students were substantially more inclined to e-cigarette use than females (p < 0.001). The top five leisure activities of a medical student were surfing social media (75.9%), watching movies (61.3%), hanging out with friends (58.1%), spending time with their family (55.4%), and browsing the Internet (53.6%). Female medical students were significantly more inclined to surf social media than male medical students, p = 0.022; also, watching movies was preferred for females compared to males, p = 0.006. Conclusion: This study revealed that the majority of these medical students in Saudi Arabia exhibited healthy lifestyles to some extent, and these health-promoting behaviors differed based on sex, especially concerning physical activity and eating patterns. The findings of this study provide relevant information for future actions that will be geared towards effectively decreasing the occurrence of chronic illnesses and improving future doctors’ well-being.

Snacking pattern of college students in Saudi Arabia: a cross-sectional study

“…However, that dietary pattern was not in line with our study’s findings, as no association was confirmed between the convenience dietary pattern and academic years, and the mean score for students at year 4 and higher was higher than the mean score of students in their early years at a university [ 17 ]. Several previous studies have demonstrated a higher consumption of fast food among college students [ 34 , 48 , 49 ], but no correlation with academic year has been found. It could be that an increase academic stress in the later years of college lead to an increased consumption of convenience food among senior students.…”

Prevalence and Associated Factors of Physical Activity among Medical Students from the Western Balkans

“…Male medical students more often did perform PA up to 30 min and more then 1 h per day in comparison with female medical students, while the female medical students more frequently had PA up to 1 h a day compared to male students. A study by Bin Abdulrahman et al [22] conducted at medical colleges in Saudi Arabia to investigate medical students' lifestyle habits, including PA shows that the greatest number of medical students exhibited healthy lifestyles to some extent. The same study indicates that these health-promoting behaviors differed by medical students' gender, especially when speaking of PA and eating styles [22].…”

“…The treatable and preventable mortality rate and the percentage of the population that does not spend time on aerobic PA that improves health (unrelated to work) was higher for the Western Balkans countries compared to European Union average (Table 1) [16][17][18][19]. Global research indicates that only 25-40% of university students are involved in regular PA [20][21][22]. Irregular PA is more common in people of better socioeconomic status, people of rural origin, it is associated with alcohol, tobacco and drug abuse, negative social impact (family, peers, social media, etc.…”

“…Irregular PA is more common in people of better socioeconomic status, people of rural origin, it is associated with alcohol, tobacco and drug abuse, negative social impact (family, peers, social media, etc. ), as well as overweight and obesity [4,5,13,20,[22][23][24][25].…”

The Influence of Socio-Demographic Factors on the Forms of Leisure for the Students at the Faculty of Physical Education and Sports

“…The favorite leisure activities of medical students in Saudi Arabia are surfing social networks, movies, spending time with friends and family, using the internet (variants identified by us). Only 4.3% of the respondents have more than 30 min of physical activity daily, and women prefer social networks and movies more than men, according to [ 66 ].…”