Personality traits and health-related behaviors in medical students facing a stressful event

Julita Tokarek; Angelika Kapuścik; Joanna Kućmierz; Edward Kowalczyk; Michał Seweryn Karbownik

doi:10.3389/fpubh.2023.1256883

Personality traits and health-related behaviors in medical students facing a stressful event

Front Public Health. 2023 Oct 10:11:1256883. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1256883. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Julita Tokarek¹, Angelika Kapuścik², Joanna Kućmierz¹, Edward Kowalczyk³, Michał Seweryn Karbownik³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Students Research Club, Medical University of Lodz, Lodz, Poland.
² Students Research Club "Metoda", Institute of Sociology, Faculty of Economics and Sociology, University of Lodz, Lodz, Poland.
³ Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Medical University of Lodz, Lodz, Poland.

Abstract

Background: It is believed that personality traits have an impact on the propensity to change and maintain favorable lifestyle habits. This issue has been raised by multiple studies, however, none of them appeared to focus on population under severe psychological stress. The aim of the present study was to investigate the link between personality traits and health-related behaviors and measures such as dietary intake of specific food products, physical activity, body-mass index and the use of cigarettes in medical students facing a stressful event.

Methods: The study included a cohort of third-year medical students from the Medical University of Lodz, Poland, facing a stressful subject exam during the first COVID-19-related lockdown. At baseline, personality traits were evaluated with the use of the Polish version of the Big Five Inventory-Short questionnaire. Then, consumption of selected food products was monitored with the use of seven-day electronic dietary record. Also, some other health-related data was collected (body-mass index, physical activity and the use of cigarettes). General Linear Modeling techniques, logistic regression and exploratory factor analysis were applied to analyze the data.

Results: Four hundred and forty-four students completed the study. A two-factor pattern of food consumption was discovered by the exploratory factor analysis in the study group (34% of the variance explained). Higher conscientiousness, but not the other personality traits, was found to be significantly associated with generally healthier lifestyle manifested by higher consumption of vegetables, wholegrain products, fruits and nuts (adjusted beta 0.16, 95%CI 0.06 to 0.26, pη² = 2.3%, p = 0.0015) and lower cigarette smoking (adjusted odds ratio 0.84, 95%CI 0.75 to 0.94, p = 0.0020), but insignificantly with physical activity and body-mass index.

Conclusion: Severely stressed medical students expressing high conscientiousness tend to present healthier behaviors. Therefore, interventions aimed at improving lifestyle habits in students with low conscientiousness might be useful.

Keywords: behaviors; conscientiousness; diet; health; personality traits; psychological stress.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Diet
Health Behavior
Humans
Personality
Students, Medical*
Surveys and Questionnaires

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This paper has been supported by the Medical University of Lodz with the grant no. 503/1-108-01/503-11-001 (received by EK).