Mental Health in the Lifestyles of young university students: PRECEED MODEL

Abstract

Young people present multiple changes in their lifestyles, due to their life dynamics. Therefore, the objective was to carry out a diagnosis from the PRECEED model, for the mental health dimension of the lifestyle of young university students; this model has five evaluative components (social, epidemiological, environmental-behavioral, educational and administrative-political). 473 students from the Santo Tomás University, Bogotá and Bucaramanga campuses, were included. The Healthy Lifestyle Questionnaire was used; the results were analyzed through descriptive statistics and identification of OR with a level of significance using chi2. In the results, the social diagnosis shows a relationship between physical well-being and the practice of physical activity with quality of life, and also found that men perform more physical activity than women (OR 3.5 p=0.000). For its part, the epidemiological diagnosis shows that four out of every ten young people are associated with a mental disorder, since they do not enjoy their free time (OR -3.0 p=0.002), they feel uncomfortable with their body shape (OR 4.4 p=0.000) and they feel less for not doing physical activity (OR 2.3 p=0.004). The behavioral-environmental diagnosis highlights high academic and work loads; The educational diagnosis shows that young people have little knowledge about mental health; Finally, the political diagnosis indicates that the government offers global mental health programs, but they do not prioritize university students or particular approaches. It is concluded that women are more likely to develop mental health problems than men.