Medical Students’ Awareness of the Links between Physical Activity and Health

Abstract

Th e eff ectiveness of physicians in providing advice to patients about physical activity (PA) is infl uenced by their own understanding of the links between PA and health, as well as by their own PA habits. Th is study involved pre-clinical medical students in New Zealand, examining their baseline knowledge, skills, and attitudes towards advising patients about PA, as well as eliciting their personal exercise habits. A total of 234 students (age 20.9±2.9 years; 46% males; participation rate: 99%) completed a paper questionnaire assessing their awareness of current PA guidelines, the benefi ts of PA, their attitudes toward PA advising, perceived competence and importance of PA-advising skills, and personal PA habits. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics. Most students were aware of the benefi ts of PA and were regularly active. Students perceived PA advising as a high priority in general practice (79%) but only 37% felt confi dent in their ability to provide PA advice. At this point in their training, students considered PA advice to be important (4.7±0.8 out of 6), yet perceived themselves to be only moderately competent in providing patient-oriented exercise prescriptions (3.1±0.8 out of 6). However, students who had regular exercise felt more confi dent in providing PA advice (3.0±0.9 vs. 3.3±0.9, p=0.009). In conclusion, medical students were generally active and had a good understanding of the links between PA and health, but were lacking skills for PA advising. Competence and skills in PA counselling need to be further developed within clinical training as part of an overall curriculum strategy.

A Physical Activity Learning Module Improves Medical Students’ Skills and Confidence for Advising Patients about Physical Activity

“…PA also has intrinsic benefits for students in terms of their own health and wellbeing (Dyrbye, Satele & Shanafelt, 2016). The authors of this paper recently reported that third year (pre-clinical) medical students in New Zealand were generally physically active and had a good understanding of the links between PA and health, but were lacking skills for PA advising and knowledge of specific PA guidelines for healthy individuals and clinical populations (Mandic, Wilson, Clark-Grill & O'Neill, 2017). In addition, regularly active medical students felt more confident in providing PA advice and perceived a greater impact of PA advising on patients' quality of life (Mandic et al, 2017).…”

“…Outcome measures and measurement procedures have been described in detail elsewhere (Mandic et al, 2017) and are briefly summarized below.…”

“…Students were asked to put themselves in the role of a primary care physician and identify their potential motivations for advising patients about PA, demonstrate their knowledge of current PA recommendations, and identify other health professionals that could assist in providing PA advice (Mandic et al, 2017).…”

“…The authors of this paper recently reported that third year (pre-clinical) medical students in New Zealand were generally physically active and had a good understanding of the links between PA and health, but were lacking skills for PA advising and knowledge of specific PA guidelines for healthy individuals and clinical populations (Mandic, Wilson, Clark-Grill & O'Neill, 2017). In addition, regularly active medical students felt more confident in providing PA advice and perceived a greater impact of PA advising on patients' quality of life (Mandic et al, 2017). Since physicians' confidence in PA-advising skills was significantly influenced by prior training (Rogers et al, 2002), it is essential to provide opportunities for medical students to develop effective skills in PA advising as a part of their undergraduate training.…”

A Content Analysis of Published Articles in Montenegrin Journal of Sports Science and Medicine from 2012 to 2017

“…Školska unakrsna studija" (Novak, Milanovic, Radisavljevic Janic, Stefan & Kristicevic, 2016), "Poznavanje nauke o fitnesu kod srednjoškolaca u javnim i privatnim školama" (Serbes, Cengiz, Sivri, & Filiz, 2017), "Upoređivanje standardnih i novih testova ravnoteže kod rekreativnih alpinista i skijaša" (Cigrovski, Franjko, Rupcic, Bakovic & Matković, 2017), "Sistemsko mapiranje ženske odbojke na visokom nivou korišćenjem analize društvene mreže: slučaj pokrivanja napada, freeball i downball" , "Pouzdanost i važnost turske jezičke verzije testa strategije učinka" (Miço-oğulları, 2017), "Svjesnost studenata medicine o vezama između fizičke aktivnosti i zdravlja" (Mandic, Wilson, Clark-Grill & O'Neill, 2017), "Ispitivanje brzine plivanja kao metoda za razlikovanje profila mladih plivača" (Siljeg, Sindik & Leko, 2017), "Ispitivanje stavova studenata fizičkog vaspitanja -nastavnički smjer prema nastavničkoj profesiji" (Yildizer, Ozboke, Tascioglu, & Yilmaz, 2017), "Sveobuhvatno mapiranje vrhunskih odbojkaša kompjuterskih igrica kroz analizu socijalne mreže -Analiza serviranja, bočnog izlaza, bočne tranzicije i tranzicije" , "Zajedničko učenje korišćenjem ekranske tehnologije u fizičkom obrazovanju" (Luptáková & Antala, 2017) i "Funkcionalno-jača-nje: Pilot studija poboljšanja kontrole ravnoteže kod starijih u zajednicama" (Josephson & Williams, 2017).…”