Healthy Lifestyle Components and Mental Health among Undergraduate Students

Abstract

 Background: Mental health issues among undergraduates have gained attention in
recent years due to their rising incidence. Healthy lifestyle components like sleep
quality, diet, physical activity, substance abuse, and social support may affect mental
health. Thus, recognizing the most important components of a healthy lifestyle allows relevant parties to execute suitable treatments. Objective: This study aims to
identify predictors of a healthy lifestyle on mental health. A cross-sectional study
was carried out on a randomly selected sample of 180 undergraduate students aged
18 to 30. Significant predictors of healthy lifestyle components were identified using
AHLQ and DASS 21 instruments. Methods: This research is quantitative research
with a nested case-control study design, using electronic medical record (EMR) data
from the Central Java Provincial Hospital in 2023. The variables in this study were
gender, age, education level, employment status, marital status, health insurance
status, BMI, DM diet, duration of DM, hypertension, other diseases, current blood
glucose, and HbA1c. The analysis used was univariate, bivariate, and multivariate
analysis (logistic regression). Results: The findings indicate a significant relationship between a healthy diet and mental health, and a healthy diet contributes 25% of
variances, while 29% of mental health variance was attributed to the combination
of a healthy diet and PA. Furthermore, 31% of mental health variance is attributed
to sleep quality variables, and a combination of healthy diet, PA, sleep quality, and
substance abuse contributes to 34% of mental health variance. Conclusion: This
study provides insights to stakeholders in terms of incorporating healthy lifestyle
components in mental health intervention strategies for undergraduate students. It
was concluded that such interventions should focus on promoting a healthy diet
since it is the most significant measure of good mental health.