Do Medical Students Suffer from Chronic Diseases? A Secondary Cross-Sectional Analysis of a Medical School in Portugal

Filipe Prazeres (), Diogo Maia and Marta Duarte
Additional contact information
Filipe Prazeres: Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Beira Interior, 6200-506 Covilhã, Portugal
Diogo Maia: Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Beira Interior, 6200-506 Covilhã, Portugal
Marta Duarte: Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Beira Interior, 6200-506 Covilhã, Portugal

IJERPH, 2025, vol. 22, issue 8, 1-6

Abstract: Background/Objectives: There is still debate about students’ health in medical schools. The aim of this study was to assess the proportion of chronic diseases among medical students and analyze their predictors. Methods: We performed a secondary cross-sectional analysis using a database from a single Portuguese university. The sociodemographic/clinical variables of 309 medical students were included. Logistic regression was performed to ascertain the effects of sex, age, medical course year, financial situation, and family history of chronic diseases on the likelihood of medical students having chronic disease. Results: Median age (Q1, Q3) was 21 (17, 43) years, with females comprising 79.9% of the sample. The distribution of students by school year was similar. The majority (65.7%) reported having sufficient money. Twenty-three percent suffered from chronic disease, and around forty percent had parents or siblings with chronic disease. In the regression model, only a family history of chronic disease was associated with a personal history of chronic disease. Medical students with parents or siblings who have a chronic disease are 3.3 times more likely to have a chronic disease themselves. Conclusions: Future interventions targeting the medical student population will be needed in Portugal to reduce the prevalence and burden of chronic diseases, particularly among those with a positive family history.

Keywords: chronic diseases; family history; medical students; Portugal (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/22/8/1282/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/22/8/1282/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:22:y:2025:i:8:p:1282-:d:1725728

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().