Yogachemmal G Dayanidy's presentation during the Fourth National Conference – Authentic Learning Innovations for 21st Century Medicos – organised by medical education unit of the Mahatma Gandhi Medical College and Research Institute, a constituent college of Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth, in Puducherry on 30 June 2018.

1. Enhancing Awareness of Yoga in Health
Professions Education Students through
a Single Interactive Session
: A Pretest-Posttest Study
Dayanidy G1
,Ananda Balayogi Bhavanani2
, Meena Ramanathan3
1
Lecturer, CYTER, Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth, Pondicherry-607403, India.
2
Director, CYTER, Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth, Pondicherry-607403, India.
3
Deputy Director, CYTER, Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth, Pondicherry-607403, India.

2.  All HPE students of SBV receive introductory
yoga sessions during the orientation programs
conducted by the respective colleges at the
beginning of the first year of training in
respective streams.

3. Aim
 To determine changes in
awareness about yoga in HPE
students after a single theoretical
and practical session at CYTER.

4. Material and Methods
 367 students (196 F, 171 M) were divided
into seven batches and then they
participated in yoga sessions at CYTER.

5.  Yoga Awareness Questionnaire (YAQ)
that was pre-validated by ten experts
with vast experience in fields of yoga,
yogatherapy, medicine, psychology and
HPE.
 A pre-test and post-test of YAQ was
given to them to evaluate the changes in
understanding / knowledge about yoga
and yoga therapy.

6. The objectives of the YAQ were:
To help students understand the holistic
meaning of yoga and to dispel common
misconceptions prevalent about it.
To introduce technical concepts and
terminology used in Yoga.
To enhance understanding about
Ashtanga Yoga of Maharishi Patanjali.
To enhance understanding of yoga as a
therapy and to clear common
misconceptions including that yoga is a
"cure all".
To introduce commonly used simple
techniques of yoga.

7.  90 minute session that included theoretical
& practice session by the same lecturer.
 The theoretical session covered topics
including foundations of yoga history,
philosophy, as well as important benefits,
strengths and limitations of yoga and yoga
therapy.

8.  The practices included basic warming-up
practices, asanas such as
arthakatichakra, tala, danda,
paschimottana, purvottana and
pranayams such as the pranava and
bhramari. The session ended with
relaxation in shavasana with savitri
pranayama.

9.  Corrected pre-test scores calculated:
 Responders often choose correct
responses to questions that they didn't
really know, and to avoid the possibility of
such false positives (correct answers by
chance in the pre-test), corrected pre-
test values were calculated.
 Pre-test and post-test answers scrutinized
for each responder and If they had
answered correctly in pre-test and
wrongly in post-test, it was considered
false positive.

10.  Pre-test score of students was revised
using this method and corrected pre-test
score calculated.
 Statistical analysis was done using
GraphPad InStat Software. As the data
didn't pass normality testing by
Kolmogorov–Smirnov test, Wilcoxon
matched-pairs signed-ranks test was
used for pre-post comparisons.

11. Results
Students (n) Pre-test Corrected pre-test Post-test
Medical 243 4 (1,8) 4 (1,8) 7 (3,10)*** ###
Nursing 99 4 (0,7) 3 (0,7) 6 (1,10)*** ###
Dental 25 5 (1,8) 4 (1,7) 7 (4,10) *** ###
Overall HPE 367 4 (0,8) 4 (0,8) 7 (1,10)*** ###
Table 1: Comparison of pre-test, corrected pre-test and post-test scores of
a yoga awareness questionnaire answered by students of Health
Professions Education (HPE) before and after a single session of yoga
theory and practice.
Values are given as median (range). ***p<0.001 by Wilcoxon Matched pairs‑
Signed ranks Test for comparisons between pre-test and post-test scores. ###p<‑
0.001 by Wilcoxon Matched pairs Signed ranks Test for comparisons between‑ ‑
corrected pre-test and post-test.

12. Fig 1: Comparison of pre-test, corrected pre-test and post-test scores of a yoga
awareness questionnaire answered by overall HPE (n=367), first year medical
(n=243), nursing (n=99), dental (n=25) students before and after a single session
of yoga theory and practice.
Values are given as median (range). ***p<0.001 by Wilcoxon
Matched pairs Signed ranks Test for comparisons between pre-test and‑ ‑
post-test scores. ###p< 0.001 by Wilcoxon Matched pairs Signed ranks‑ ‑
Test for comparisons between corrected pre-test and post-test.

13. Discussion
 Level of awareness about yoga was
initially on the lower side (a median of 4
with range of 0 to 8).
 This was consistent in all streams though
dental students had a slightly higher
score of 5 (1, 8) - may be d/t lesser
number in the batch resulting in skewed
representation.
 Evident in all batches and streams that
even a single session resulted in changes
to nearly double the pre-test level (a
median of 7 with range of 1 to 10).

14.  Consistent in all batches and streams
implying the efficacy of the single session in
improving the levels of awareness in HPE
students irrespective of their streams of
medicine, nursing and dentistry.
 Differences between pre-test and post-test
were comparable to those between
corrected pre-test and post test hence
implying that the gain of knowledge during
the session was significant.

15.  Government of India is attempting to
bridge traditional systems of AYUSH with
modern medicine.
 Evidence is imperative towards
understanding "best practices" for
integration of yoga in HPE.
 This study is one of the first to look at this
angle and hopefully it will stimulate more
such studies in near future.

16. Personalized feedback from
students to the yoga sessions
 Really helpful and felt relieved from
tension.
 Gave a refreshing feel.
 Was a good stress relieving session.
 Good experience though a bit
challenging initially.
 Very useful sessions involving various
relaxation techniques required by us in
our day to day activities.

17.  Useful to reduce my stress and anxiety.
 Looking forward to more classes in the
future.
 Practice was very easy and comfortable
to do.
 I learnt many new things about yoga
which I didn’t know before.
 It makes us feel free and energetic.
 After the yoga class I felt good.

18.  Since, we are hostlers we had no physical
exercise but this gave us some. I hope this
continues every week.
 Shavasana is really good. I liked it very
much.
 I felt some silence inside my body.
 I felt very fresh and enthusiastic.
 A nice kind of relaxation.
 I felt really good.

19. Conclusion
 It is concluded that even a single session
of yoga theory and practice can result in
significant improvements of the
awareness and knowledge about yoga.
 This sets the stage for future short and
long term studies on benefits for such
students

20. Thank You