Life quality of medical and law undergraduates

Abstract

Life quality may be defined as the individual perception of one`s role within the prevailing cultural set of values and compared to the existing aims, expectations, standards, and worries.  Medicine and the human sciences are particularly interested in the topic because of the known stressors students of these areas must bear. The aim is recognizing and assessing the life quality of medical and law undergraduates at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora. The WHOQOL-bref questionnaire was applied to 232 students of the first, fifth, and ninth periods of the medical and law courses, corresponding to 62.91% of the medical students and 67.50% of the law students. Most students see their life quality as “good” or “very good” (90.12% of law students and 86.75% of medical students), although 33.33% of those in the ninth medical period see their life quality as “neither good nor bad”, a finding pointing to a deterioration of life quality as the medical course progresses.  The life quality of this population was similar and considered good throughout their courses. The life quality of the undergraduates surveyed was similar and considered good throughout their courses.

Keywords: Quality of life, Medical students, psychological stress, students