Abstract

DEMOGRAPHICAL IMPACT ON KNOWLEDGE TOWARDS OBESITY IN HEALTHCARE STUDENTS: MALAYSIA

Sunil Kumar Prajapati*, Jasrinder Kaur a/p Jasbir Singh

ABSTRACT

Objectives: The main aim of the study is to evaluate healthcare students’ knowledge towards obesity and find the correlation between students’ demography and knowledge. Method: An observational & cross-sectional study was conducted in a private university, Malaysia from July 2018 to May 2019. A total of 380 healthcare students from Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmacy participated in the study. Analysis was carried out by using SPSS version 22. Descriptive statistics was used for data classifications. Mann Whitney U, and Kruskal Wallis test was used to compare mean difference between knowledge and demographic profile. Result: This study had shown that the mean correct score of knowledge in healthcare students is 71.45 %, There is statistically significant relationship between ethnicity and knowledge (p<0.05). However, other demographic variable showed no statistically significant corelation impacting obesity. Conclusion: Majority of the students are aware about obesity and their knowledge level is associated with ethnicity.

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