Quality of Life Enjoyment & Satisfaction in Medical Students and Natural Resources Students in Sari, 2010

Background and Quality of life by definition is "The individual`s perception of his or her position in life within the cultural context and value system he or she lives in. Our purpose was to study the quality of life enjoyment and satisfaction in medical students of Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences in comparison to Natural Resources students of Mazandaran University and assessment of effectiveness of various factors on this variable. This study was descriptive cross-sectional type in which all these students who were consent to fill the questionnaire have been included. The short form of "Quality of Life Enjoyment & Satisfaction Questionnaire" with a demographic questionnaire filled in with the students. Descriptive statistics, t-test and ANOVA was used by SPSS 17 software to compare two groups. The quality of life enjoyment and satisfaction in medical students was significantly worse than non-medical students (p=0.002). Students with better economic status (p=0.03), students who lived with their parents (p=0.009), medical (p=0.019) and natural resources (p=0.000) first year students and younger students (p=0.001) had better scores in this field. Decreasing quality of life enjoyment and satisfaction during acquisition in university is a warning to the people who are responsible for students education and welfare. Lack of satisfaction of quality of life in students may lead to a decrease in their working efficiency and makes medical students poor role models for their patients regarding physical and mental health.