Personal, Environmental and Lifestyle Factors Affecting Learning among Medical Students: A Cross Sectional Study

Abstract

Background: Medical education is perceived as a stressful experience. Personal, environmental and lifestyle factors can affect learning among medical students. The main objective of this study was to identify the personal, environmental and lifestyle factors among medical students in a medical school in Northern Malaysia.  

Methods: This cross sectional study involved 177 medical students from Year 1 and Year 2 who gave their consent.  

Results: Among the participants: 66 (31.3%) were males, 111 (68.7%) were females. 99 (55.9%) belonged to Year 1 and 78 (44.1%) to Year 2. Almost 88.7% of students expressed as to having good personal factors while 80.2% of students expressed to have good environmental factors. About 19.2% of participants were under high dietary risk. Physical activity of students studied, showed that 67.8% were inactive. A significantly higher proportion of female students from year 1, expressed as to having good personal and environmental factors which can affect learning. Regarding the dietary risk factor, a significantly higher proportion of males and those from year 2 were in the high risk group. Physical activity was significantly higher among males compared to females. However, there was no significant difference between year of study and physical activity.  

Conclusion: Despite a high proportion of students shown to have good personal and environmental factors, they still need to sustain their personal level of motivation in the clinical years.