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Health Status, Behaviors, and Beliefs of Health Sciences Students and Staff at Kuwait University: Toward Maximizing the Health of Future Health Professionals and Their Patients

Health professionals who engage in healthy lifestyle behaviors are more likely to promote their patients’ health. We evaluated health status, behaviors, and beliefs of students (future health professionals) and staff in four health sciences faculties, Kuwait University. In total, 600 students and 23...

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Autores principales: Al-Sayegh, Nowall, Al-Enezi, Khazna, Nadar, Mohammed, Dean, Elizabeth
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7730932/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33255967
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17238776
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author Al-Sayegh, Nowall
Al-Enezi, Khazna
Nadar, Mohammed
Dean, Elizabeth
author_facet Al-Sayegh, Nowall
Al-Enezi, Khazna
Nadar, Mohammed
Dean, Elizabeth
author_sort Al-Sayegh, Nowall
collection PubMed
description Health professionals who engage in healthy lifestyle behaviors are more likely to promote their patients’ health. We evaluated health status, behaviors, and beliefs of students (future health professionals) and staff in four health sciences faculties, Kuwait University. In total, 600 students and 231 staff participated in this descriptive cross-sectional study. Questionnaire surveys were used to evaluate lifestyle-related practices and participants’ beliefs about these practices, in addition to health-related objective measures, e.g., heart rate, blood pressure, and body mass index. Overweight/obesity was prevalent among the participants (staff, 68.7%, students, 48.1%; p < 0.001); 57% of staff had suboptimal resting blood pressures. About half of the participants reported being moderately physically active (staff, 44.8%, students, 52.6%; p < 0.05), and most reported moderate/high stress (staff, 88.8%, students, 90.9%; p > 0.05). Only 25.1% of staff and 27.9% of students reported at least 8 h sleep nightly (p > 0.05). Staff reported healthier dietary practices than students (p-value range < 0.001–0.02). Overall, the participants had sub-optimal health indices. A marked gap existed between participants’ beliefs about healthy lifestyle practices and their actual health status. Healthy lifestyle programs are needed on campus with respect to diet, exercise, and stress management. As emerging health professionals, students in health sciences faculties, Kuwait University, need exposure to a health-promoting environment including healthy staff as role models.
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spelling pubmed-77309322020-12-12 Health Status, Behaviors, and Beliefs of Health Sciences Students and Staff at Kuwait University: Toward Maximizing the Health of Future Health Professionals and Their Patients Al-Sayegh, Nowall Al-Enezi, Khazna Nadar, Mohammed Dean, Elizabeth Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Health professionals who engage in healthy lifestyle behaviors are more likely to promote their patients’ health. We evaluated health status, behaviors, and beliefs of students (future health professionals) and staff in four health sciences faculties, Kuwait University. In total, 600 students and 231 staff participated in this descriptive cross-sectional study. Questionnaire surveys were used to evaluate lifestyle-related practices and participants’ beliefs about these practices, in addition to health-related objective measures, e.g., heart rate, blood pressure, and body mass index. Overweight/obesity was prevalent among the participants (staff, 68.7%, students, 48.1%; p < 0.001); 57% of staff had suboptimal resting blood pressures. About half of the participants reported being moderately physically active (staff, 44.8%, students, 52.6%; p < 0.05), and most reported moderate/high stress (staff, 88.8%, students, 90.9%; p > 0.05). Only 25.1% of staff and 27.9% of students reported at least 8 h sleep nightly (p > 0.05). Staff reported healthier dietary practices than students (p-value range < 0.001–0.02). Overall, the participants had sub-optimal health indices. A marked gap existed between participants’ beliefs about healthy lifestyle practices and their actual health status. Healthy lifestyle programs are needed on campus with respect to diet, exercise, and stress management. As emerging health professionals, students in health sciences faculties, Kuwait University, need exposure to a health-promoting environment including healthy staff as role models. MDPI 2020-11-26 2020-12 /pmc/articles/PMC7730932/ /pubmed/33255967 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17238776 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Al-Sayegh, Nowall
Al-Enezi, Khazna
Nadar, Mohammed
Dean, Elizabeth
Health Status, Behaviors, and Beliefs of Health Sciences Students and Staff at Kuwait University: Toward Maximizing the Health of Future Health Professionals and Their Patients
title Health Status, Behaviors, and Beliefs of Health Sciences Students and Staff at Kuwait University: Toward Maximizing the Health of Future Health Professionals and Their Patients
title_full Health Status, Behaviors, and Beliefs of Health Sciences Students and Staff at Kuwait University: Toward Maximizing the Health of Future Health Professionals and Their Patients
title_fullStr Health Status, Behaviors, and Beliefs of Health Sciences Students and Staff at Kuwait University: Toward Maximizing the Health of Future Health Professionals and Their Patients
title_full_unstemmed Health Status, Behaviors, and Beliefs of Health Sciences Students and Staff at Kuwait University: Toward Maximizing the Health of Future Health Professionals and Their Patients
title_short Health Status, Behaviors, and Beliefs of Health Sciences Students and Staff at Kuwait University: Toward Maximizing the Health of Future Health Professionals and Their Patients
title_sort health status, behaviors, and beliefs of health sciences students and staff at kuwait university: toward maximizing the health of future health professionals and their patients
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7730932/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33255967
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17238776
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