Health-risk behaviors relate to health problems on annual health check-up

Abstract

Background : Annual health check-up is an important process to evaluate health status and identify health risk behaviors i.e. cigarette smoking, sleep deprivation, alcoholic drinking, inadequate exercise, eating unhealthy foods, and unsafe driving.

Objective : To determine the effect of gender, age group, and health-risk behaviors on health problems.

Design : Cross-sectional analytic study

Materials and Methods : Data were collected from 412 persons who went to Her Royal Highness (HRH) Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Medical Center for their routine health check-up from November, 2007 to December, 2008. The authors used logistic regression and simple linear regression for multivariate analysis with two-tailed p-value of less than 0.05.

Results : Men had smoking, eating unhealthy diet and alcohol drinking more than women. Smoking and abdominal obesity increased according to age group. Eating unhealthy diet increased creatinine. Alcohol drinking increased triglyceride and High density lipoprotein (HDL). Adequate exercise increased HDL. Abdominal obesity related to hypertension with odds ratio of 8.65. Men had more obesity and high fasting blood sugar than women with odds ratio of 3.34 and 2.73, respectively.

Conclusion : Men had health-risk behaviors and had health problems more than women. Health risk behaviors changed in blood chemistry which could predict risks to cardiovascular disease, diabetes mellitus, dyslipidemia, liver disease, or kidney disease. Healthcare providers should encourage people to have regular annual health check-up, especially the older age group.