Objectives: This descriptive study of 219 undergraduate medical students at Patan Academy of Health Sciences in Nepal was conducted to evaluate the relationships of their demographic variables with a health-promoting lifestyle profile. Methods: The Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile (HPLP) questionnaire was used to study students' lifestyles. We compared the HPLP scores according to gender, residence type, school background and year of study. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and multiple comparison test were conducted to identify significant differences among university year (first, second, third and fourth) groups. Multiple regression analysis was used to analyze the effects of various demographics on the overall HPLP score and the six health-promoting lifestyle subscales. Results: The overall HPLP mean score of participants was 2.60 ± 0.29, with the highest mean scores being for spiritual growth (2.99 ± 0.42) and interpersonal relations (2.90 ± 0.35), and the lowest mean scores being for health responsibility (2.39 ± 0.39) and physical activity (2.25 ± 0.54), respectively. The overall HPLP score of the students was the highest for the first year students at 2.65 ± 0.26. The male students had a better overall HPLP score, although female students obtained better score in some sub-scales such as health responsibility, interpersonal relations and nutrition. The students from a public school background had significantly higher scores for health responsibility, physical activity and stress management than those who graduated school level education from a private school. Conclusions: The results of this study reveal that the status of health promoting behaviors among the students was acceptable with ample room for improvement. Implementation of health education and promotion programs with an How to cite this paper: Paudel, S., GC,

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Introduction: Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) are among the most complex health problems of the 21 st century. Young people aged 15-24 years are the HIV/AIDS at risk group. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of an educational interventional program on knowledge on HIV/AIDS among adolescent students of higher secondary school in Kathmandu, Nepal. Methods: The study was the pre test-post test experimental study design with an experimental and a control group conducted in the randomly selected eighteen higher secondary schools. The intervention, educational package on HIV/AIDS, was provided to all grade twelve students in the intervention group from 1st September, 2017 to 2nd January, 2018. In total, 321 from the intervention group, and 283 from the control enrolled at baseline and over 95% of these were followed up at posttest. The data were collected from self-administered questionnaires in English version and analyzed by using independence t-test and paired t-test. Results: Overall pretest knowledge of both intervention and control groups was comparable with 27.58 ± 4.05 and 28.53 ± 3.77 mean ± standard deviation respectively. But statistical analysis showed significant higher knowledge (P = 0.03) among control group. After the educational intervention, the mean knowledge score of control group increased by only 0.47, whereas the same score increased by 11.57 and reached 39.15 ± 3.7 in post-test for intervention group. The difference in post-test score was statistically highly significant (P < 0.001). The finding indicates that the educational intervention was effective in changing the HIV/AIDS knowledge How to cite this paper:

Background Doctors’ empathy: the understanding of patients’ experiences, concerns and perspectives, is highly valued by patients yet often lacking in patient care. Medical humanities has been introduced within undergraduate curriculum to address this lack in empathy. There is a paucity of research on the impact of a course on medical humanities on the empathy of medical students, particularly in South Asia. Here we report on the impact of such an intervention in first-year medical students and aim to help outcome-based medical education and the evaluation and promotion of humanities within medical courses. Methods This study is a quantitative evaluation of student empathy before and after a Medical Humanities course. The study employs the Jefferson Scale of Empathy-Student version (JSE-S). Participants were first-year medical students at Patan Academy of Health Sciences, Nepal. All cohort students were invited to participate and written consent was obtained. Data were collected both prior-to and on-completion-of, a six-week Medical Humanities module. Pre- and post-module data were analyzed and the resulting empathy scores compared using the paired t-test or Wilcoxon Sign Rank test. Subgroup analysis was undertaken to determine the association of the score with gender and preferred future speciality. Results Sixty-two student responses were analyzed, 32 (52%) male. In the Pre-module scores females had a slightly higher mean score than males:108 and 103 respectively. Participants who preferred people-oriented specialities also scored higher than those preferring procedure and technology-oriented specialities: 107 and 103. There was a significant increase in mean score for the entire class from Pre-module to Post-module: 105 to 116, p-value of < 0.001. Mean scores rose from 103 to 116 in males, and from 108 to 116 in females. Participants preferring Procedure and Technology-Oriented specialities showed a significant increase in meanscores:103 to 117, and participants preferring People-Oriented specialities demonstrated a smaller increase:107 to 111. Conclusion This study provides evidence of the impact of a Medical Humanities course for increasing medical student empathy scores at an institution in Nepal. Teaching of Medical Humanities is an important contributor to the development of empathy in medical students and its widespread expansion in the whole of South Asia should be considered.