Comparative analysis of health behaviour between medical and law students

Abstract

Summary: Introduction: It is essential to measure the health behaviorof those young people who might influence the health status of the population by setting an example as future healthcare workers. Presumably, those who study medical or health sciences have different health behavior compared with those who study something else. Our main aim was to survey and compare the health status and the various aspects of health behavior of medical students of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Debrecen with law students of the Faculty of Law, University of Debrecen.

Methods: Oursample consisted of fourth year medical and law students. Beyond the general health status related questions, we also asked about physical activity, eating habits, smoking and alcohol consumption. The questions of the 2014 EHIS questionnaire were adapted in our survey. In September 2017 171 university students were interviewed related to their health behavior via self-completed paper questionnaires. Independent t-tests, Mann-Whitney tests and Chi-square tests were used for the data analysis.

Results: According to our results female law students perceive their health status worse (p=0.006) and have a higher ratio of smokers (p<0.001) than female medical students. Male law students spend twice as much time doing sports (p<0.001), do more muscle training (p<0.047), however, they also drink alcohol more often (p=0.005) and have a higher ratio of smokers (p=0.042) than male medical students. Blood pressure (p=0.008), cholesterol level (p=0.010) and blood sugar (p=0.001) was measured by healthcare workers earlierbefore among female law students than among female medical students. Among males we only identified a significant difference regarding measuring blood sugar level (p=0.031) in favor of the medical students.

Conclusions: It would be beneficial to launch aprogram among students who attend non-medical or non-health science courses that highlight the health hazards of smoking and alcohol consumption and would also promote the possibility of quitting these lifestyle behaviors. Although, our research has revealed statistically significant differences, further researches are needed in order to explore the underlying factors.