A STUDY ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LIFESTYLE AND LONELINESS IN THE STUDENTS OF URMIA UNIVERSITY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE IN 2019

Feeling of loneliness has a high prevalence among medical students and may affect their physical, mental, and social health. Identifying the factors associated with feeling of loneliness can provide the information needed to design the interventions needed to prevent it. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine the relationship between lifestyle and loneliness of the students in Urmia university of medical science.

The present study was a correlational study in which 510 students of different fields of Urmia University of Medical Sciences were selected by stratified random sampling in 2019. Data were collected using the Demographic Characteristics Questionnaire, the Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale (R-UCLA), and the Standard Lifestyle Questionnaire (LSQ). Then the data were analyzed using SPSS software version 20 using descriptive statistics and Spearman correlation coefficient test.

The prevalence of moderate and severe loneliness in this study was 33.5% and 40.3%, respectively. The results showed that from 510 people studied in this study, 89% of them had a strong-healthy lifestyle. The result of Spearman correlational test showed that there was a statistically significant relationship between lifestyle and loneliness (r = -26/26, P = 0.001).

The results of this study emphasize the need to pay attention to the state of loneliness and lifestyle in the students, identify situations and causes of intensification of this feeling in this age group, and set up intervention programs to reduce it.