Abstract

SANABRIA-FERRAND, PABLO-ALFONSO; GONZALEZ Q., LUIS A.  and  URREGO M., DIANA Z.. HEALTHY LIFE STYLES IN COLOMBIAN HEALTH PROFESSIONALS: EXPLORATORY STUDY. rev.fac.med [online]. 2007, vol.15, n.2, pp.207-217. ISSN 0121-5256.

The objective of this study was to establish the frequency of healthy life styles in a sample of Colombian health professionals and to establish if there is any relation between their level, as described by the biomedical model, and their life styles. For that purpose, the questionnaire of Practices and Believes about life styles of Salazar and Arrivillga (1) was adapted and applied to a sample of 606 health professionals volunteers (500 medical doctors and 106 nurses) in the main cities of Colombia. It was found that only the 11,5% of the medical doctors and the 6,73% of the nurses seems to have a healthy life style and that the main problem was related with the low physical activity and sport practice. No relation was found between the biomedical model and the life style of the professionals. It was concluded that this situation could be inducing unhealthy habits in the professional and attitudes that do not favor the promotion of healthy habits in their patients and so the practice of a healing medicine rather than a better preventive medicine, as it has been sustained by Erika Frank (2).

Keywords : life styles; health behavior; medical staff.