Association between quality of life and stress in speech, language, and hearing sciences students

ABSTRACT

Purpose  To verify the association between quality of life - from the physical and material well-being domains; relationships with other people; social, community and civic activities; personal development; achievement and recreation -, with stress in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences.

Methods  40 students (34 females) from an undergraduate course in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, aged between 19 and 39, answered the Flanagan Quality of Life Scale and Lipp's Stress Symptoms Inventory. The results were analyzed using binary logistic regression.

Results  The domains related to the quality of life with the worst results were “physical and material well-being” and “personal development and achievement,” and the domain that showed the best results were “relationships with other people”, being able to predict 21.2% of the cases of stress. The quality of life in the “relationships with other people” domain was a significant predictor of the study, being considered as protective for stress in the investigated sample.

Conclusion  A good quality of life in the domain “relationships with other people” was a protective factor of stress in students of the Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences.

Keywords:  Quality of life; Indicators of quality of life; Psychological stress; Student health; Students