Knowledge and Practice of Medical Students on Healthy Lifestyle: A Cross-Sectional Study in Shiraz

Background: physicians are one of the most important groupsdirectly associated with public health and their health relatedlifestyle has a significant impact on their patient’s behaviors.several studies showed that the majority of medical students didnot have appropriate and healthy behaviors. the aim of this studywas to determine the prevalence of risky lifestyle knowledge andbehaviors among shiraz medical students.methods: this cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2011.using a stratified random sampling method, 400 medical studentswere selected to fill in the questionnaires. the questionnairecontained 33 questions including demographic data, healthylifestyle knowledge and behavior (including physical activity,fruit and vegetable consumption, water drinking, etc),perception of stress and student’s health information resource.the association between demographic factors and participants’knowledge, practice and stress score was determined. thecorrelation between the participants’ knowledge and behaviorscores was calculated.results: the mean knowledge and attitude scores were 2.8 and3.6, respectively. in 40% of knowledge and 80% of practicequestions, the percentage of the correct answer was below 50%.there was a significant correlation between the participants’knowledge and behavior scores (p < 0.05).conclusion: this study raises the voice of concern with medicalstudents’ knowledge and behavior on healthy lifestyle measures.there is a need for re-thinking, planning and reviewing theseconcepts of pure reason which is essential in their futureprofessional career. health considerations, health surveillanceand care systems which are based on evidence, reasonability andrationality still have to be paramount.