Exercise and associated features with low-level exercise among doctors

Abstract

Background:  Physical activity had been reported among doctors-in-training, with very few focusing on attending doctors. This study aimed to evaluate the physical activity, particularly exercise, of Thai doctors and features associated with low-level exercise.

Materials and methods:  Thai doctors who participated in the hospital’s CSR service, which was conducted between Feb 14, 2022, to Oct 31, 2022, were verbally informed along with an information sheet about this parallel study. The doctors who consented to participate provided their personal data on diets, work hours, illnesses, health surveillance, stress, state of well-being, and exercise. To investigate the association with clinical features, the exercise level was categorized as low-level (≤ 2 days/week) or high-level (≥ 3 days/week).

Results:  The median age of 1187 doctors was 45.0 years. Slightly over half were female (55.4%) or worked ≤ 40 hours/week (55.3%). The presence of illnesses was found in 55.9%, irregular health surveillance in 29.0%, no/low fiber diet in 19.2%, overweight/obesity in 28.0%, and moderate/severe stress in 25.9%. Among the doctors who provided exercise data, 29.8% had a high-level of exercise and 49.0% had a low-level. Independent features associated with low-level exercise were no/low fiber diet (aOR = 3.01), irregular health surveillance (aOR = 2.41), age ≤ 60 years (aOR = 1.82), female gender (aOR = 1.79), and work > 40 hours/week (aOR = 1.76).

Conclusions:  Only 30% of Thai doctors had a high level of exercise. The significant independent factors for low-level exercise were younger age, female, working load, irregular health surveillance, and no/ low fiber diet.

Keywords: Dietary fiber; Exercise; Health surveillance; Physicians

HIGHLIGHTS

Exercise, one of the most crucial and beneficial health habits, is not a common practice among the general population.

Data on exercise were mainly from trainees, with few from professional doctors.

Nearly half of the 1187 doctors in the study had low-level exercise with young age, female, hard work, poor diet, and irregular health surveillance as risk factors.