Health behaviours and prevention demands in health students: A cross-sectional study at Rouen university health campus (France), 2007

Context: Health impairment of students has recently increase attention in public health policy in France. So target-group-specific health prevention has become an important issue. Prevention demands and needs remain to be clearly identified in university students population.   Objective: To correlate risk factors and risk comportments with health prevention demands in health students.   Methods: In May 2007, a cross-sectional study was conducted in 5 health schools (medical, pharmacy, nurses, midwives, physiotherapy) in Rouen University Health Campus. Anonymous questionnaires collected age, gender, psychoactive substances consumption (tobacco, alcohol, cannabis), level of stress, dietary habits and demand of prevention related to these topics.   Results: A total of 1,407 students were included, with an overall response rate of 77.8%. The sex-ratio M:F=0.37, the mean age was 22 years (SD=3.34). The most frequent demands of prevention were successively about nutrition, stress, physical activity and eating disorders. Smoking, alcohol and cannabis risk consumption were significantly associated to demand of prevention (logistic regression): Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR)=4.54, 95% CI=3.32-6.22 for tobacco prevention; AOR=1.75, 95% CI=1.24-2.46 for alcohol prevention; and AOR=8.04, 95% CI=3.50-18.45 for cannabis prevention. Prevention demand for eating disorders risk, stress and depression was significantly associated to gender (respectively AOR=2.97, 95% CI=2.09-4.94; AOR=1.55, 95% CI=1.10-2.18; AOR=1.43, 95% CI=1.04-1.97 in women).   Conclusion: The findings of this study reveal that demands of prevention are strongly correlated with established comportment risks. There is strong need for health promotion in our health campus in new areas (stress management, eating habits). In France, the ability to respond to needs among students is currently a challenging public health investigation and intervention area. The implementation of health counselling program (including individual supports) could help to raise the awareness about risk comportments and to strengthen the prevention competencies of students.