Quality of life Predicting Factors among the First Year Medical Students.

Abstract

ABSTRACT
Objectives: To find factors correlated with quality of life in first year medical students.
Methods: A correlation study was made in a cross-sectional survey. The self-reported
questionnaire consisted of a brief WHO Quality of Life indicator in Thai (WHOQOL-BREF-THAI). One-hundred and forty five first year medical students were recruited (85.3%) including 65 males (44.83%) and 80 females (55.17%). Students came from 3 methods of entrance examination for instance ODOD project (17.94%), CPIRT (42.75%) and Consortium of Thai Medical School (39.31%).
Results: 55.86% were at a fair level of quality of life while 44.14% were at a good level.
Quality of life neither correlated with gender nor entrance examination methods. Worrying about adapting oneself to new friends was correlated with overall quality of life. Regression coefficient was -5.311 (b = 115.220, p<0.01). Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient was (ρ) =-0.386 (p<0.01). The factor was also able to predict physical (ρ=-.387, p<0.05), mental (ρ=-0.323, p<0.05), and social (ρ=-0.256, p<0.05) quality of life whereas concern about financial problem
(ρ=-0.327, p<0.05), about tuition group (ρ=-0.288, p<0.05), and problem-based learning (PBL) (ρ=-0.231, p<0.05) was able to predict only overall quality of life. Environmental quality of life was correlated with financial concern (ρ=-0.359, p<0.05). In addition, the question ‘how is you life?’ correlated with overall quality of life (ρ=0.541, p<0.01).
Conclusion: Worrying about adapting oneself to new friend is the only factor correlating with
overall, physical, mental, social, and environmental quality of life of the first year medical students. Hence, an activity that can encourage adaptive skills to make friends has a major role in improving quality of life.