title: Attitude of future healthcare provider towards vitamin D significance in relation to sunlight exposure.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Nature is the kindest of all to provide man with all the necessary components for a healthy life at easily accessible lengths. The deprivation arises with unawareness and lack of correct measures to extract the benefits. Medical education makes the youth aware of the numerous disorders and diseases, as well as their preventions and treatments. This awareness needs to be realized and implemented in the society, and it is not possible without the advisers acting on the same lines. Since doctors are the most trusted and their advice is adopted without much thought, it is extremely inevitable to analyze the attitude of medical students of various levels to understand the cause of their negligence toward their own deficiencies, the focus for this study being vitamin D (VD).
  
  
  METHODS
  A cross sectional descriptive study was done on undergraduate medical students of health profession from different universities of Pakistan to access the awareness regarding VD deficiency associated with sunlight. Informed consent was duly signed by each participant after which self-constructed questionnaire was provided to them and data are collected. SPSS 17 was used for Statistical analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Final students are well aware of VD significance, take food rich in VD but still suffer from fatigue and muscular pain. No treatment was taken for fatigue and muscular pain by majority of these sufferers and those who took treatment were VD supplement. The health sufferers were mostly those who avoided sunlight highlighting the role of VD in maintaining an active lifestyle as well as the significance of sunlight in maintaining VD levels.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  It can be concluded that in spite of awareness, the role of sunlight exposure and the proper time and duration of exposure cannot be ignored to create a healthy and active society.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Business Management (IoBM), Karachi, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Aysha Zia
authors.initials: AZ
authors.lastname: Qureshi
authors.affiliation: Baqai Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Baqai Medical University, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Zubia
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zia
authors.affiliation: DIMC-Dow University of Health Sciences, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Mehnaz Nuruddin
authors.initials: MN
authors.lastname: Gitay
authors.affiliation: Institute of Business Management (IoBM), Karachi, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Muhammad Umair
authors.initials: MU
authors.lastname: Khan
authors.affiliation: Institute of Business Management (IoBM), Karachi, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Muhammad Saad
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Khan
keywords: Healthcare provider; Perception; Students; Sunlight exposure; Vitamin D significance