Estilos de vida en estudiantes de la Universidad Popular del Cesar: un enfoque diferencial por facultades

Introduction. Lifestyle (LS) comprises a set of habits and behaviors that differentiate individuals. Within the university context, there is a need to address these in a disaggregated manner, taking into account the different faculties, as these constitute microcontexts within the university sphere. Objective. The present study aims to analyze student LS to understand the influence of factors linked to academic demands and sociocultural aspects on self-care behavior. Methods. A quantitative approach with a cross-sectional descriptive-comparative scope was employed, and the FANTASTIC questionnaire was applied to measure LS in a sample of 1,428 students from the Universidad Popular del Cesar. Results. The results revealed mean scores ranging from 69.74 ± 9.77 for the Faculty of Health Sciences to 76.30 ± 10.88 for the Faculty of Engineering and Technology. The Kruskal-Wallis test statistic (H (6) = 41.804; p < .001) and the Dunn-Bonferroni post hoc analysis were applied to measure differences between faculties. This revealed that the Faculty of Engineering had better scores compared to Health Sciences (p = .003), Basic Sciences (p = .001), and Education (p = .001), while Law and Political Sciences ranked in the intermediate range. Regarding age, no significant differences were found (X2(2) = 2.917; p = .233), although the coefficient of variation was higher in adults, suggesting greater internal heterogeneity. Conclusions. The findings highlight the variation in lifestyles according to academic units, challenging the assumption of student homogeneity and pointing to the need for health interventions tailored to the specific characteristics of each faculty.