ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION AND LIFESTYLE IN MEDICAL STUDENTS

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES: Studies have shown that adherence to healthy behaviors among young people has declined. Alcohol is the most widely used psychoactive substance among students, who underestimate its effects, exposing themselves to more risk situations. Any dose of alcohol increases the risk of death from all causes in a dose-dependent relationship. Researchers advocate the use of traces to identify students at risk of potential to monitor and prevent the use of the substance. The aim of the study was to investigate the prevalence of alcohol use and associated factors in medical students. METHODS: Cross-sectional study carried out in Porto Alegre, in the second half of 2015 with 190 medical students who responded to self-administered questionnaires with demographic, socioeconomic information, cigarette smoking and alcohol use, physical activity and tracking of mental disorders common. Univariate and bivariate analyzes were performed. As a measure of association, the reasons for crude and adjusted prevalence and their confidence intervals of 95% by Poisson regression with robust variance were estimated. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Regarding the use of alcohol, 56.7% of the students responded positively to the question of episodic heavy drinking and 63% reported this practice more than 3 times in the last 30 days. The tracking of common mental disorders verified the prevalence of 21% among academics. Universities, as training center, play a key role in identifying and intervention health problems. Health promotion and preventive actions that result in a change in patterns of tobacco use, alcohol and other substances among college are required.