The aim of the study was to investigate the morbidity structure and adaptation potential of foreign students during education at higher educational establishments of Yerevan. Symptoms, signs, and abnormal clinical and laboratory findings not classified elsewhere (mainly tachycardia) take the first place (20.0%) in disease structure among first-year foreign students. The second and the third places take diseases of the eye and adnexa that presented mainly by myopia (18.9% and diseases of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue, correspondingly, that presented mainly by flat foot and carriage disorders (14.4%). Among graduating foreign students myopia takes the first place (22.3%) and the second place belongs to diseases of the nervous system (16.0%). Diseases of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue take the third place (14.9%). There is also a sharp 5.2% increase in prevalence of diseases of digestive system The analysis of adaptation level among foreign students revealed that during the period of education the number of students with satisfactory adaptation decreases and the number of students with functional tension of adaptive mechanisms sharply increases from 17.6% to 33.0% among males and from 42.5% to 57.1% among females. This indirectly signified to the loss of health by foreign students during education. Negative changes in the health status of foreign students during education at higher educational establishments of Yerevan are probably determined by intensive educational process, unhealthy dietary habits, and new climatic conditions, as well as by the socioeconomic burden.

Health status Adaptation potential Foreign students

education adaptation abnormal laboratory result human neurologic disease health status Myopia eye disease morbidity musculoskeletal disease flatfoot adnexa disease connective tissue disease male female prevalence tachycardia Article major clinical study digestive system disease Armenia foreign student