Lifestyle and wellbeing of Arabian Gulf University medical students: Identifying areas for intervention

Methods A cross sectional study was conducted on all AGU Years 1 to 4 medical students who were enrolled in the 2008-2009 academic year. A self administered anonymous questionnaire was used, which included questions on demography, anthropometry, wellbeing and lifestyle.

Results Of the 535 medical students who were enrolled in years 1-4 during the academic year 2008-2009, 443 responded to the questionnaire. The study showed different behaviors by gender, medical year and nationality. BMI patterns were different by gender (p<0.001). More male students practiced physical activity (67.5%) than females (49.0%) (p<0.001). Risky behaviors while driving were practiced by medical students, as half of those who drove did not fasten their seatbelts, exceeded 100Km/Hour, talked on mobile phones, wrote and read text messages. Forty percent of the female students used their mobile phones for more than 2 hours per day compared to 41.4% for TV/DVD and 65.9% for the computer. The corresponding percentages for male students were 24.6%, 35.2% and 68%, respectively. Eleven percent only of the medical students were smokers, either on daily or occasional basis. The prevalence of smoking was 27% among male students compared to 4.2% among the females (p<0.001).

Conclusion The AGU medical students do not appear to adopt a healthy lifestyle. Moreover, lifestyle risk behaviors cluster among these students according to gender, nationality, medical year and accommodation status. Urgent interventions are needed at AGU on promoting healthy lifestyle among medical students to improve their wellbeing.