Research On Quality Of Life Status Among High School Students And Its Influencing Factors

OBJECTIVES:To preliminarily explore the state of quality of life (QOL) among high school students and to find out main psychosocial factors influencing their QOL under the guidance of ecosystem theory so as to put forward measurements targeting the improvement of QOL from various ecological aspects of the school, the family, the social environment and the mental condition etc. for high school students.SUBJECTS and METHODS:1.Qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis were both used in this study. The qualitative method included literature review, field survey at the worksites and having an informal discussion with 120 teachers or students for two hours according to schools and personnel respectively. There are ten or twenty persons participating in the discussion each time.2.Totally 1,444 high school students in the city of Ji nan and its suburb were investigated by questionnaires, including Quality of Life Scale for High School Students (HSS-QOLS), the Self-Esteem Scale (SES), the Perceived Social Support Scale (PSSS), Adolescent Self-rating Life Events Check list (ASLEC), SimplifiedCoping Style Questionnaire.RESULTS:l.The outcome of qualitative analysis suggested that academic pressure, self-esteem, peers social activities, support from families, and sports time might influence QOL of high school students. There were different conflicts and problems need to be settled imperatively from different aspects in ecological system of the school, the family, the social environment, etc.2.The comparison by different types of schools showed that QOL had significant difference among five different types of schools (p<0.01). High school students living in cities have the best QOL (49.54-53.56) while those living in the countryside had poor QOL (41.71- 47.85). In the physiological dimensionality, students from technical high schools had the highest QOL while having lower scores in mental dimensionality. And students from private schools had comparatively lower scores in dimensionalities of social environments and families.3.The comparison of QOL by sociological factors showed that there were significant differences in QOL when the subjects were divided into groups according to gender, grade, singleton or non-singleton, and time spent in surfing on the Internet or sports.Females and male students showed difference in all the investigated areas except for those in schools, social and familial environments with statistical significance. The scores of males were higher than those of females in physiological, mental and individual subscales while lower in social function subscale.Singleton and non-singleton high school students showed significant differences in the scores of all the subscales except for the subscales of social function and schoolDifferent grade high school students had significantly statistical differences in each dimensionality of QOL (p<0.01). High school students of the first and second grade have better QOL.Generally, the scores of QOL among different groups of time surfing on internet were different. And students who spent more time surfing on internet (48.96-53.02) had higher QOL scores than those spent less time on internet (42.92-49.86) except for schools dimensionality.The QOL in different sports time groups showed significantly statistical difference in each dimensionality (p<0.01). The high school students spending more than two hours in sports had better life quality than those who spent less than two hours in sports. Multiple comparison indicated that the life quality had significantly statistical differences in all investigated areas.4.The scores of QOL in different family conditions showed that the life quality had distinctly variations in aspects of family inhabitation place, parents' educational background, parents' profession, parental rearing pattern, economical level of the family and parental relationship.The QOL scores of high school students living in cities were higher than those living in suburb, villages and towns. The former scored 47.80-51.95 but the others were scored 42.30-49.00.The QOL scores of high school students with different parents' educational background showed statistically significant difference on each dimensions of QOL except for schools and physiological dimensionality (p<0.01). On the whole, QOL scores of high school students with higher parents' educational background were higher than those with lower parents' educational background.The comparison of QOL by different parents' profession indicated that the life qualities of high school students with unemployed father were lower than those with employed father. And the difference was significant on each dimension of QOL except for the dimension of school (p<0.01). While the life quality of high school students with unemployed mothers was significantly different from those with employed mothers on each dimension of QOL except for the dimensions of school and social function (p<0.01).The comparison of QOL by parental rearing patterns showed that there werestatistically significant differences in all investigated areas of QOL (p<0.01). And the life quality of the high school students from the democratic family was higher than other rearing patterns.The comparison of QOL by family economic level showed that there was significant difference on life qualities among five different economic levels (p<0.01). High school students with good family economic level had the best life qualities (47.17-52.79) while those from poor families showed poor life qualities (42.30- 46.93).The QOL of high school students from families with different parental relationships was significantly different on each dimension of QOL (p<0.01). On the whole, the results showed that good parental relationship was beneficial to the improvement of QOL.5.The correlation analysis between quality of life and the psychosocial factors influencing QOL showed that self-esteem, active coping and each factors of social support were positively correlated with each dimension and aspect of QOL while passive coping and life-events were negatively correlated with each dimension and aspect of QOL.6.The multiple regression analysis showed that the main factors influencing each dimension of QOL were different. The main factors influencing the physiological dimension of QOL were academic pressure, self-esteem, punishment, health and acclimatization. The main factors influencing the mental dimension of QOL were self-esteem, academic pressure, loss in life and active coping. The main factors influencing the social function dimensionality of QOL were support from families, self-esteem, punishment and academic pressure.The multiple regression analysis also showed that the main factors influencing one aspect of QOL were different. The main factors influencing QOL of school were punishment, other negative events (such as relationship with teachers or the teacher in charge of the class, ect.), self-esteem, academic pressure. The main factors influencing QOL of individual were self-esteem, academic pressure, punishment,health and acclimatization, and support from families. The main factors influencing QOL of the family were self-esteem, support from friends, health and acclimatization. The main factors influencing QOL of the social environments were the same as those influencing QOL of family.CONCLUSIONS:l.As a whole, The QOL of high school students are in the middle levels. But the QOL in the subscales of family and school should be improved especially.2.The QOL of high school students from different cities has no much difference except for the family QOL. The comparison of QOL shows that gender, grade, singleton or non-singleton, family functions such as the parents' educational background, parents' profession, parents' relationship and parental rearing patterns, the spare time arrangement (for study, sport, or internet surfing) are the factors influencing QOL of high school students, which indicates that corresponding educational policies should be set up according to the situations of different schools, of students themselves and of family conditions. Great importance should be attached to the rational arrangement of their spare time. Sports time should be no less than 2 hours daily and much importance should be attached to the rational utilization of internet.3.The correlation and regression analysis reveal that common influencing factors on QOL are self-esteem, social support, coping style and life events, especially self-esteem, academic pressure, social support from families and friends. Self-esteem, social support and active coping are in favor of QOL while academic pressure, being lost in life and health and acclimatization go against QOL of high school students.4.Different educational intervention scheme should be put forward according to different predictors of QOL, such as school, family and social environment. Academic pressure should be lightened in schools; to respect everyone and to encourage students properly should be implemented in schools. Teachers should strengthen communication with students and establish rational means in education,especially avoid hurting their self-esteem. Students should enjoy themselves actively, arrange their spare time rationally, communicate with friends or families and make use of support from friends actively. Parents should create a warm family atmosphere and harmony parentage. Society should purify social environment to offer health growing conditioning. It is important to strengthen intercommunion between schools and families or social network of social ecosystem and improve students' study or living environment to ameliorate QOL in physiological, mental, social function dimensions all-sided.