Level of physical activity of students from the police force academy in Bratislava

Abstract

Background and Study Aim. A healthy and active lifestyle is becoming one of the most talked topics amongst people from all over the world. Being more physically active has never been more important than today as both jobs and leisure activities are becoming increasingly sedentary. Humans have moved from being very physically active to being less and less active each year. The aim of our study was to find out the degree of satisfaction and the frequency of performing leisure activities among students of the Police Academy in Bratislava, Slovakia. Material and Methods. For the purpose of our study, we have used a short version of International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) that consisted of 7 questions. The survey was attended by 439 students of the Police Academy located in Bratislava, capital of Slovakia. Our study group was divided into two groups according to their gender, the first group consisted of 249 female students and the second o 190 male students. The overall average age of our students of 21.55 years. Our survey was carried out at the end of the summer semester in June 2022. Questionnaire was carried out online and created through Google forms. The results of the questionnaire were later compared based on the participants gender and analysed using homogeneity test of two independent samples, two-sample t-test with equality and inequality of variances and the chi-square test at the level of significance p < 0.01 or p < 0.05. Results. When compared, male students in general were more active than female students - median of 30 minutes a week. Male students engaged in vigorous intensity physical activity on average more than 15 minutes a week compared to female students. Moderate intensity physical activity difference was even bigger (23,09 minutes a week) in favour of male students, these results have proven to be also statistically significant at the level of significance p < 0.01. Female participants of our study were slightly more active in walking physical activity, 2.92 minutes a week on average, but the difference between our two studied groups have not proven to be statistically significant at the level of significance p < 0.05. Conclusions. Here in our study, we’ve looked at physical activity, physical activity levels and how much students attending Academy of the Police Force in Bratislava engage in them. By comparing our survey participants to adults from other countries we can conclude that both our male and female participants have shown higher physical activity levels.