Research Article
Lakshmi Singh,1Anju Gahlot,2Atul Kumar Singh3
1Senior Resident, 2Professor, 3Professor
1,2,3 Department of Community Medicine, RMCHRC, Kanpur, U.P, India.
Submitted: 29 June 2024; Accepted: 15 July 2024; Published: 20 July 2024
Corresponding Author: Dr Lakshmi Singh, Sen Resident, Rama Medical College Hospital & Research Centre, Mandhana, Kanpur, India. Email: [email protected]
INTRODUCTION
•Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are slowly progressive. They are of long duration and responsible for more than 50% of the global burden of disease, including heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and chronic lung disease.
• few studies to date have examined the prevalence of tobacco and alcohol use among UGs and PGs. Out of the available studies, tobacco and alcohol use prevalence was 9.0% in UGs and 7.1% in PGs; however, they may be at a higher risk of substance use problems due to higher stress levels.
• Few studies on NCDs and their risk factors have been conducted among medical students in Kanpur, so we have planned this study in this area.
AIM: To study the prevalence of risk factors for noncommunicable diseases among medical students at Rama Medical College, Kanpur.
MATERIAL AND METHODS
• Cross-sectional analytical study was conducted on undergraduate medical students at Rama Medical College, Kanpur, from January 2021 to September 2022.
• This study used simple random sampling, prepared using the total MBBS student list of four batches from their attendance register.
•362 students were randomly selected in MS EXCEL by random number table.
•First year to final year MBBS were included while those who were unwilling excluded.
•Data analysis was done by using the software SPSS version 20. The prevalence of NCD risk factors was presented in frequencies and percentages. Most of the variables in this study were categorical, so statistical significance was tested using the Chi-square test and p-value (p-value ≤0.05 is statistically significant, and > 0.05 is not important), and also, the strength of association was tested between risk factors using the independent t-test.
CONCLUSION:
The prevalence of physical activity in female students was 51.05%, and in male students, it was 48.94%. A large segment of students was nonsmokers (91.16%). Among students who were smoking i.e., 15.15% were smoking more than 3 packets per week. The prevalence of smoking was highest among male students (93.75%), with the most common age group being 21-26 years. Only 3.87% of students agreed to consume alcohol. Out of which 71.43%were taking < 2 pegs /week. The dietary assessment further revealed that 59.12 % were on a mixed diet, 69.34 % had a history of junk food consumption, and 73.48% took snacks between meals.
RECOMMENDATION:
Outdoor activities should be encouraged, and junk food should be restricted. Government policy: Increase taxes on cigarettes; decrease the advertisement of tobacco and alcohol.Vegetable and fruit intake. Avoid snacks in between meals. Avoid junk food. Avoid smoking and alcohol intake. Blood pressure screening should be done through regular health checkups among medical students. Screening for raised blood sugar should be done at admission and at regular intervals.
REFERENCES:
- Noncommunicable diseases and their risk factors.Available at:https://www.who.int/ncds/en/.Accessedon31May2019
2. Ramakrishna GS, Sankara Sarma P, Thankappan KR. Tobacco use among medical students in Orissa. Natl Med J India. 2005 Nov-Dec;18(6):285-9. PMID: 16483025
3. Seshadri S. Substance abuse among medical students and doctors: A call for action.NatlMedJIndia.2008;21(2):57–59 4.
4. British Medical Association.The Misuse of Alcohol and Other Drugs by Doctors. London: British Medical Association;1998
- Acknowledgment: We would like to express our deepest gratitude to our project supervisor, Dr. Anju Gahlot, for their invaluable guidance and support throughout the research process. Their expertise and dedication were instrumental in shaping this project.
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- Funding
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- Informed Consent
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- Conflict of Interest Statement
All the authors declared “No Conflict of Interest” with this publication.
- Additional Information
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This open-access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License CC-BY 4.0., which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
- DOI: 10.62996/daj.08072024
Cite this article: Lakshmi Singh,1Anju Gahlot,2Atul Kumar Singh3. A study of the prevalence of Risk factors of Non-Communicable diseases amongst medical students in Rama Medical College, Kanpur. Diabetes Asia Journal. 2024; 1(1):56-59
