MEDICAL STUDENTS ARE PRACTICING YOGA! LIFE QUALITY AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT

Abstract

INTRODUCTIONMedical education can affect physical and mental health of students as well as their quality of life. Contact with pain, death, poor quality of public health system and strenuous medical programs influences their quality of life. Besides, frustrations with the insecurity regarding their professional future were also reported to enhance the stress. Based on this, we propose a Hatha Yoga program trying to improve the quality of life of medical students from Santa Casa de São Paulo School of Medical Sciences (São Paulo – Brazil).MATERIAL and METHODSSelf‐perception of life quality was evaluated in first and second‐year students from Morphology Department. The World Health Organization Quality of Life Assessment (WHOQOL‐BREF) was offered for all students. Students who have shown WHOOQL‐BREF score under 50% were invited to participate of this study. For selected students, the Short‐Form Health Survey (SF‐36) was offered before the first Hatha Yoga class. The evaluation of the SF‐36 results was done by attributing scores to each question, which were then transformed into a scale ranging from 0 to 100, where 0 corresponds to the worst quality of life and 100 to the best. Twenty‐four Hatha Yoga classes including Pranayama (breathing exercise, 5’), Asanas (postures, 35’), Yoganidra (relax, 5’), Dhyana (meditation and Yoga Theory, 15’) were offered twice a week in the last three months of Anatomy course. After last Yoga Class, another SF‐36 was applied and dimensions of social aspects, mental health, emotional health and vitality was compared and t‐paired test was used to show statistical significance.RESULTS240 students were invited to participate and 50 answered WHOOQL‐BREF. 69.9% students (n=32) has shown WHOOQL‐BREF score under 50.0% and 82.1% reported pain and discomfort, 75.0% exhibit dependence on medication and 80.7% related negative feelings. All of 32 students were invited to participate of this study and 16 accepted the invitation and were included in this study. First SF‐36 has shown impairment in social aspects (44.5 ± 19.7), mental health (40.8 ± 17.4), emotional health (16.6 ± 24.4) and vitality (28.4 ± 16.4). These data were compared to last SF‐36 and have shown statistical significance in all of parameters: social aspects (73.3 ± 24.4 p<0.001), mental health (65.2 ± 20.5 p< 0.001), emotional health (56.2 ±45.1 p=0.001) and vitality (59.1 ± 20.7 p<0.001).DISCUSSION and CONCLUSIONWe believe that Hatha Yoga offers a comprehensive solution for managing medical student’s health as a whole and it can lead to reduction of stress levels. Reduction in perceived stress levels results in lesser negative feelings, lower anxiety and depression and improved sense of well‐being, and better sensory‐motor performance. Yoga seems to contribute to improvement of life quality and enhance the concentration and learning. Teaching medical students to relate mindfully to current internal and external stimuli, through yoga, can decrease mental distress, improve students’ academic performance and increase well‐being.