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Journal of Community Medicine & Health Education | ISSN: 2161-0711 | Volume 8
&
Medical Sociology & Public Health
3
rd
World Congress on
Public health and Epidemic diseases
International Conference on
September 21-22, 2018 | Dallas, USA
Gender differences in habits for a healthy lifestyle among medical university students, Saudi Arabia
Almohannad Saleh A Algarni
and
Waleed Saeed S Alqahtani
King Khalid University, Saudi Arabia
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.
almohannad94@gmail.comAlmohannad Saleh A Algarni et al., J Community Med Health Educ 2018, Volume 8
DOI: 10.4172/2161-0711-C4-042