Jorjani Biomedicine Journal

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  Abstract

  Background and objectives: Depression is the most common cause of disability caused by diseases in the world. Having physical activity is a solution for reducing depression. This study was conducted to determine the causes of depression and its related factors.

  Methods: In this descriptive-analytical study, 266 female students participated in the study selected by random stratified sampling. The data were collected with demographic questionnaires, the Beck Depression Inventory, and the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) and the body composition was measured with the body analyzer machine and entered into the SPSS software. To examine the effect of physical activity on depression, a logistic regression model was used with adjusting the effect of the likely confounding variables.

  Results: The mean age of the participants was 22.15 ± 2.4. According to the Beck Depression Inventory, 24.8% (66 individuals) suffered from depression and 69.5% (185 individuals) were healthy and 5.6% (15 persons) were missing from study. The results did not show a significant difference between depression and being local or nonlocal, BMI and the income level. But there was a significant difference between the healthy and the depressed group with regard to physical activity ( P=0.03). Physical activity at recommended levels showed an inverse relationship with depression of students so that students who have the recommended levels of physical activity get the 44% lower chance to be in the depressed group against students who have been low level of physical activity (OR=0.56, 95% CI:0.31-0.99, P=0.046).

  Conclusion: Due to the effect of physical activity on reducing depression, providing sport facilities, recommending people to increase their physical activity and culture making in the society can serve as constructive solutions to improving the psychological health and preventing depression in the society.

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Background & Objective: Health promotion is defined as the process of enabling people to increase control over their behavior and health improvement. Among all these, health promoting behaviors are one of the best ways by which people can maintain and control their health. Due to the importance of young adults› health in promoting health in the community, This study aimed to determine and compare the health promoting behaviors in the first and fourth year students of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical and non-Medical Sciences in the academic year 92-93. Method: This cross-sectional study was carried on 500 students from the two Shahid Beheshti Universities by multistage sampling. Data were collected by the 52-item questionnaire of Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile II. The data were analyzed using SPSS version 18, independent t-test, Pearson correlation, multiple regression analysis and ANOVA analysis. Results: The results showed that from the total score of 208, the average and standard deviation of health promoting behaviors was 128.74 ± 20.16 in students of medical sciences and 128.96 ± 20.52 in non-medical students. Among all the aspects of health promoting behaviors on the two tested groups, self-actualization and physical activity had the highest and lowest scores respectively. Conclusion: In this study, there was no statistically significant difference between the average score of health promoting behaviors among medical and non-medical students.