Cent Eur J Public Health 2024, 32(1):39-44 | DOI: 10.21101/cejph.a8097

Physical activity and mental health of medical students

Konstantinos Stratakis¹, Zorica Terzić-Šupić², Jovana Todorović¹, Dejan Nešić³, Ivana Novaković¹

¹ Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia

² Institute of Social Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia

³ Institute for Medical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia

Objective: Medical students usually do not meet the recommendations on the minimum level of physical activity, despite knowing the impact that physical activity has on the prevention and treatment of various diseases. Medical students are considered to be insufficiently physically active. The aim of this study is to determine the prevalence of physically active fifth-year medical students at five universities in Serbia, as well as to identify factors associated with insufficient physical activity of students.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed in the population of fifth-year medical students from five different universities in Serbia. The research instrument was a questionnaire specially designed based on similar research. Descriptive and analytical statistics methods were used in statistical analysis.

Results: The study included a total of 573 fifth-year medical students from five universities in Serbia: 311 (54.3%) Belgrade; 86 (15.0%) Kragujevac; 58 (10.1%) Nis; 66 (11.5%) Kosovska Mitrovica; 52 (9.1%) Novi Sad. Insufficient physical activity was statistically significantly associated with studying at the University of Kosovska Mitrovica (OR = 3.98, 95% CI: 1.83-8.57). There was a statistically significant difference in the frequency of anti-anxiety medications use in the last 12 months between students with sufficient and insufficient physical activity (p = 0.040) as well as in the average number of cigarettes smoked per day between students with sufficient and those with insufficient physical activity (2.82 ± 6.35 vs. 4.50 ± 8.29, p = 0.043). There was also a statistically significant difference in the average score on the Beck's depression scale between students with sufficient and students with insufficient physical activity (6.51 ± 6.59 vs. 10.03 ± 9.37, p < 0.001) and in the average score on Zung's anxiety scale (34.86 ± 8.18 vs. 38.07 ± 8.71, p = 0.003).

Conclusion: A high percentage of medical faculty students (86.6%) are physically active. Differences in the level of physical activity were observed between students of these five universities as well as between students with different levels of physical activity.

Keywords: medical students, physical activity, level of physical activity, mental health

Received: November 27, 2023; Revised: March 29, 2024; Accepted: March 29, 2024; Published: March 31, 2024  Show citation