Health Promoting Lifestyle Behaviour in Medical Students: a Multicentre Study from Turkey

Nacar, Melis,Baykan, Zeynep,Cetinkaya, Fevziye,Arslantas, Didem,Ozer, Ali,Coskun, Ozlem,Bati, Hilal,Karaoglu, Nazan,Elmali, Ferhan,Yilmaze, Gulay Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention 2014 Asian Pacific journal of cancer prevention Vol.15 No.20

Background: The aim of this study was to determine the predictors of health promoting lifestyle behaviour among medical students attending seven of the medical schools in Turkey. Materials and Methods: This crosssectional descriptive study was performed during the second semester of the first and last (sixth) years of study from March to May 2011. A questionnaire with two sections was specifically designed. The first section contained questions on demographic characteristics; the second consisted of the Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile II (HPLP) Scale. From a total of 2,309 medical students, 2,118 (response rate 91.7%) completed the questionnaire. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t, Anova, Tukey test and binary logistic regression analysis. The research was approved by the Ethics Committee of Erciyes University. Results: The mean age was $20.7{\pm}2.9$ years and it was found that 55.1% were men, 62.3% were in the first year. The overall prevalence of smoking was 19.1%, and for drinking alcohol was 19.4%. HPLP point averages of the first year students were $129.2{\pm}17.7$, and for last year $125.5{\pm}19.0$. The overall mean score for the HPLP II was $2.5{\pm}0.4$. They scored highest on the spiritual growth subscale ($2.9{\pm}0.5$), interpersonal relations ($2.8{\pm}0.5$), health responsibility subscale ($2.3{\pm}0.5$), nutrition subscale ($2.3{\pm}0.5$), stress management subscale ($2.3{\pm}0.4$), and the lowest subscale physical activity ($2.0{\pm}0.5$). It is established that student's grade, educational level of parents, economic status of family, marital status, smoking and general health perception of the students resulted in a significant difference in HPLP Scale total score average and the mean score of majority of subscales. There was no statistically significant difference between the total HPLP when evaluated for gender, chronic disease, alcohol drinking status and BMI. Conclusions: Based on these results, particularly in the curriculum of medical students in order to increase positive health behaviours including physical activity, health promotion issues, and giving more space to aim at behaviour change in these matters is recommended.

Hazardous Health Behaviour among Medical Students: a Study from Turkey

Nacar, Melis,Cetinkaya, Fevziye,Baykan, Zeynep,Yilmazel, Gulay,Elmali, Ferhan Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention 2015 Asian Pacific journal of cancer prevention Vol.16 No.17

Background: Hazardous health behaviour in young people is an important factor that affects the individual risk for non-communicable diseases and other disorders later in life. This study aimed to determine the hazardous health behaviour of first and last class medical students of Erciyes University. Materials and Methods: This descriptive study was carried out with 240 medical students from the first and 130 students from the last (sixth) class. Data were obtained by questionnaire between March-April 2012. In total, 339 students were included with a response rate of 91.6%. Socio-demographic characteristics, school success, self-reported economic difficulties, health perceptions, hazardous health behaviour related to chronic disease, tobacco, alcohol, substance use, body weight, height, traffic, violence and nutrition were assessed in line with the literature. Results: Of the participants; 64.0% were from first and 36.0% were from the last class. Mean ages for the first and last classes were $19.4{\pm}1.5$ and $24.0{\pm}1.5years$, respectively. In the current study, males exhibited more hazardous behaviour than females. Sime 19.8% of the students in the study group used alcohol, 35.4% used a waterpipe, and 24.8% used tobacco at least once. These rates increased in both genders in the last class and the increase in males was significant. Some 3.8% of the students in the current study used pleasure-inducing illegal substances at least once. All the students participating in the current study were single, the number of males reported not using condoms (8.6%) was 4.56 times higher compared to females. Some 64.0% of the students did not perform physical activity lasting at least 30 minutes for five times a week, 13.0% did not sleep for mean 7-8 hours daily, males having a 2.9 times higher risk. More than 1/3 of the students did not consume cooked vegetable dishes and 1/4 did not consume fresh fruits and salads, the rates were higher among males. Conclusions: In the current study, hazardous health behaviour was prevalent among medical students, with higher risks among males and last class students. According to these results, medical curriculum may be focused on decreasing hazardous health behaviour. In addition, in order to prevent unhealthy behaviour, the number of youth-friendly health facilities should be increased.

Forecasting Daily Streamflow Discharges Using Various Neural Network Models and Training Algorithms

Sinan Nacar,M. Ali Hınıs,Murat Kankal 대한토목학회 2018 KSCE JOURNAL OF CIVIL ENGINEERING Vol.22 No.9

Streamflow forecasting based on past records is an important issue in both hydrologic engineering and hydropower reservoir management. In the study, three artificial Neural Network (NN) models, namely NN with well-known multi-layer perceptron (MLPNN), NN with principal component analyses (PCA-NN), and NN with time lagged recurrent (TLR-NN), were used to 1, 3, 5, 7, and 14 ahead of daily streamflow forecast. Daily flow discharges of Haldizen River, located in the Eastern Black Sea Region, Turkey the time period of 1998-2009 was used to forecast discharges. Backpropagation (BP), Conjugate Gradient (CG), and Levenberg- Marquardt (LM) were applied to the models as training algorithm. The result demonstrated that, firstly, the forecast ability of CG algorithm much better than BP and LM algorithms in the models; secondly, the best performance was obtained by PCA-NN and MLP-NN for short time (1, 3, and 5 day-ahead) forecast and TLR-NN for long time (7 and 14 day-ahead) forecast.

Healthy Life-Style Promoting Behaviour in Turkish Women Aged 18-64

Sonmezer, Hacer,Cetinkaya, Fevziye,Nacar, Melis Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention 2012 Asian Pacific journal of cancer prevention Vol.13 No.4

Aim: In this study we aimed to investigate the healthy life-style behaviour of Turkish women and establish influencing features. Methods: This descriptive study performed by a questionnaire method was conducted in a primary health care centre, in an urban region in Kayseri, Turkey. Every midwife region belonging to the health care centre was accepted as a cluster, and a sample of 450 women between ages 18-64, was gathered from 9 midwife regions. The Health Promotion Life-style Profile (HPLP) was applied to evaluated the healthy lifestyle behaviour of 421 women that could be reached. T test, Tukey HSD with ANOVA, and chi square tests were used for analysis. Results: The mean total HPLP was $126.8{\pm}19.2$ (interpersonal support subscale, $74.3{\pm}14.1$; nutrition subscale, $73.6{\pm}12.6$; self-actualisation subscale, $70.6{\pm}11.9$; stress management subscale, $63.4{\pm}13.0$; health responsibility subscale, $61.2{\pm}13.2$; and exercise subscale, $47.1{\pm}15.0$). There was no statistically significant variation when evaluated for age, marital state, family type, economic status, and perception of self-health, smoking, and BMI. HPLP was high in people with an education of primary school and lower in university graduates, in people who lived mostly in the city centre and in individuals with chronic diseases. In conclusion, it was established that the health promoting behaviour in Turkish women is, in general, at a medium level, and women should be enlightened in order to develop and increase the habit of health preservation and promotion.

Neutrophil-lymphocyte and platelet-lymphocyte ratios in endometrial hyperplasia

( Bulent Cakmak ),( Selim Gulucu ),( Nurlan Aliyev ),( Zeki Ozsoy ),( Mehmet Nacar ),( Dogan Koseoglu ) 대한산부인과학회 2015 Obstetrics & Gynecology Science Vol.58 No.2

Objective The purpose of present study was to evaluate association between neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and platelet-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) and endometrial hyperplasia (EH). Methods One hundred and ten women with abnormal uterine bleeding were included into the study. Blood samples were drawn from all patients to obtain complete blood cell counts, neutrophil-leukocyte ratio and platelet-leukocyte ratio before endometrial curettage procedure initiated. The patients were divided into three groups due to their pathological results: group 1, patients with EH without atypia (n=40); group 2, patients with EH with atypia (n=15); and group 3, patients with neither hyperplasia nor cancer as control group (n=55). Blood cell counts, NLRs and PLRs were compared among these groups. Results Based on hemoglobin and platelet counts, there was no significant difference among these groups (P>0.05). Leukocyte and neutrophil counts were higher in group 2 (EH with atypia) than group 1 and group 3 (P<0.01). NLR of group 2 was significantly elevated when compared to group 1 and group 3 (P=0.004). PLR was higher in group 1 and group 2 than control group (P=0.024). Conclusion Non-specific inflammatory markers such as NLR and PLR were elevated in women with atypical EH. These markers may be used as a predictor of atypical EH in patients with abnormal uterine bleeding.