Comparison of quality of life in dormitory and non- dormitory female students of Islamic Azad University, Tehran medical sciences branch

Quality of life is a broad concept and has a complex relationship with physical health¡ psychological status¡ level of independence¡ social relationships¡ personal beliefs and environmental factors and in recent years¡ it has gained great importance. The aim of this study was to compare the quality of life of dormitory and non-dormitory female students in the medical group who are studying in Islamic Azad University¡ Tehran Medical Branch.
Material & This cross-sectional study was conducted on 356 female students of Tehran Islamic Azad University who were studying in one of the medical branches in 20114-2015.
As the data collection tools¡ Demographic and quality of life questionnaire that was made by the researchers were used. The questionnaires were distributed among non-dormitory and dormitory students through simple random and available sampling method respectively. The data were evaluated using Descriptive and inferential statistics.
Results showed that¡ the total score of quality of life in dormitory students (65.82±38.46) is significantly lower than non-dormitory students (78.01±28.66) (p=0.001). The factors such as residence status¡ marital status and exercise were significantly associated with quality of life¡ among these three factors; the residence status is the strongest predictor of students'' quality of life (beta coefficient 9.649).
According to the findings¡ it seems that staying in the dormitory during the studying (according to various challenges and stresses and being away from family) is accompanied with reduced quality of life and reducing the overall score in each of its dimensions (physical health¡ mental health¡ social relationships¡ environmental health and overall health).