Evaluation of commitment to a healthy lifestyle among the students of a medical university as the basis for the formation of preventive programs

A student’s commitment to a healthy lifestyle (HLS) is determined by their values, worldview, level of awareness about the risk factors and knowledge of the measures to reduce them, where the result of programs for the formation of health skills depends, in turn, on the commitment of a particular person to the implementation of certain recommendations. To manage healthy lifestyle programs, sertain tools are needed to assess the level of knowledge and readiness to comply with health-preserving guidelines. Objective of the study: to study the informational and behavioral component of the commitment to a healthy lifestyle of medical students. Methods and materials. 686 students of the first (368 people) and third (320 people) courses were selected for the study of commitment to a healthy lifestyle. With the help of the questionnaire “Awareness of the main parameters of a healthy lifestyle” and the questionnaire “Study of a healthy lifestyle”, according to a specially developed methodology, the awareness of the main parameters of a healthy lifestyle, the degree of their implementation by the respondent and the opinion about the factors influencing the formation of a healthy lifestyle were studied. Statistical processing of the results was carried out using the programs Statistica 5.0 and Microsoft Office Excel. Results. The main factors influencing the commitment to a healthy lifestyle among medical students are low levels of awareness of the theoretical foundations of a healthy lifestyle and motivation to maintain it. Negative trends in commitment to a healthy lifestyle are more clearly manifested by the third year: students’ self-evaluation of their own health is falling, the proportion of respondents who assess their health as “mediocre” and “bad” is growing, the proportion of students with optimal physical activity and normal body weight is decreasing. Gender differences were found: young men are less committed to taking care of their own health. The ranking of risk factors according to the degree of influence on health showed that, according to the students, the leading factors are those directly related to their lifestyle: systematic lack of sleep and study overload. Opposite opinions of students on the influence of certain factors on their health were found, which may be due to both the lack of information and its incorrect interpretation. Objectivity of the assessment of students’ awareness of the main parameters of a healthy lifestyle using an individual scoring showed that the average score of “awareness” of the first year is 3.8, the third – 8.2 points. The point expression of awareness can be used in assessing the effectiveness of the theoretical part of the programs for the formation of a healthy lifestyle. Scope of the results. The results of the study can serve as an information stage in the development of healthy lifestyle programs for students, as well as for the formation of approaches to the development of an evaluation scale for the effectiveness of such programs.