Calidad de vida relacionada con la salud y su influencia sobre el rendimiento académico

Abstract

Objective: to establish Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQL) among Health (dentistry, optometry, physical education, and dental laboratory technology) and Law undergraduate students at a Colombian University and its relation to their academic performance. Methods: an observational cross-sectional study was conducted with 679 legal age students who were chosen by simple random sampling. All of them filled out the WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire. The variables analyzed were the four domains (Physical and Psychological Health, Social Relations, and Environment), socio-demographic characteristics (sex, age, socio-economic condition, marital status, and presence of illness), and academic performance (period grade average). The four domains were treated as continuous variables, frequencies, percentages, ranges, means, and standard deviations were obtained. A t-test was used to compare the mean scores, and multiple linear regression was conducted. A p<0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: the participants’ median age was 20 years (range 19 - 22 years) and 426 (62.7%) were female. There was no statistically significant difference in age by sex (p=0.1519). Less than half (42.6%) of the students rated their HRQOL as “very good”, and 274 (40.4%) were “very satisfied” with their health. In the Physical and Psychological Health domains, the variables that had the greatest influence were doing physical activity (ß: 4.5 95% CI: 2.3 - 6.7 / ß: 4.1 95% CI: 1.6 - 6.5), suffering a disease (ß: -7.7 95% CI: -10.7 - -4.6 / ß: -7.2 95% CI: -10.6 - -3.8), and having a good semester grade average (ß: 5.3 95% CI: 3.2 - 7.4 / ß: 4.8 95% CI: 2.5 - 7.2). In the Social Relations and Environmental domains, the greatest influence observed was having a high socio-economic condition (ß: 1.7 95% CI: 0.2 - 3.2 / ß: 5.2 95% CI: 4.1 - 6.2), doing physical activity (ß: 3.5 95% CI: 0.4 - 6.5 / ß: 2.6 95% CI: 0.4 - 4.7), and having a good semester grade average (ß: 4.5 95% CI: 1.6 - 7.3 / ß: 4.0 95% CI: 2.0 - 6.0). Conclusions: being male was related to the Psychological Health and Environment domains. Doing physical activity had an important influence on Health-Related Quality of Life, this result is consistent with other reports.