Relationship between extracurricular activities and quality of life with academic achievement in dental students of Isfahan University of medical sciences.

Creating an appropriate learning environment for students can play a role in generating dentist with high qualification. One of the factors that can be effective is extracurricular activities. Becouse of few studies and contradictory results, this study evaluate the Relationship between extracurricular activities and quality of life with academic achievement in dental students of Isfahan University of medical sciences.

This descriptive-analytical study was carried out on dental students in the last three years of education in Isfahan University of medical sciences during year of 96-97.The data collection form was divided into,demographic information and extracurricular activities. The quality of life was determined with the SF-36 questionnaire.Then, after the satisfaction questionnaire was distributed, data were analyzed by SPSS VERSION22 and descriptive statistical methods, Pearson correlation  coefficient , t-test and linear regression(p-value<0.05).

In this study, 130 students (51 males and79 females) were studied with the mean academic achievment score84/15 and mean score of total quality of life 72.33. Spearman correlation coefficient showed no meaningful relationship between the total score and the quality of life (r=0/086, p-value=0/332). Quality of life mean score, in the group with extracurricular activities was more than those who did not have extracurricular activity but this differences was not statistical significant (P>0.05).

In general, it can be concluded that extracurricular activities are not likely to be effective in academic achievement and academic failure, and since the average students score in dentistry is not favorable, investigating other factors should be considered.