ORIGINAL PAPER
Well-being and health perception of university students in Portugal: the influence of parental support and love relationship
1
Institute of Education, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal
2
Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology, University of Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Submission date: 2020-03-02
Final revision date: 2020-04-06
Acceptance date: 2020-04-06
Online publication date: 2020-05-04
Publication date: 2020-04-28
Health Psychology Report 2020;8(2):145-154
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
Background:
The mental health of university students has been the subject of great attention from scientific investigations, not only to provide contextualised information, but additionally since high levels of well-being predicted a quality education. This study aims to evaluate the perception of well-being and health of university students, exploring the psychometric properties of the Well-being and Health Perception Scale (WbHPS) and analysing the influence of sociodemographic variables.
Participants and procedure:
A questionnaire was applied to a representative sample of 840 university students in Portugal stratified by year of academic attendance and scientific area of study. The WbHPS consists of 5 items measured on a 5-point Likert scale. We considered as explanatory variables the year of study and scientific area, sex, age, love rela-tionship, professional situation and BMI.
Results:
The WbHPS showed good psychometric properties, indicating the presence of an explanatory factor of 58.45% of variance and a good internal consistency (α = .81). The obtained results identified WbHPS as being inde-pendently associated with being in a love relationship, having a normal weight and not being displaced after starting at university.
Conclusions:
It is necessary to (re)think about disease prevention and health promotion actions in higher education, with psy-chosocial interventions that truly reflect on the well-being and health of university students.
The mental health of university students has been the subject of great attention from scientific investigations, not only to provide contextualised information, but additionally since high levels of well-being predicted a quality education. This study aims to evaluate the perception of well-being and health of university students, exploring the psychometric properties of the Well-being and Health Perception Scale (WbHPS) and analysing the influence of sociodemographic variables.
Participants and procedure:
A questionnaire was applied to a representative sample of 840 university students in Portugal stratified by year of academic attendance and scientific area of study. The WbHPS consists of 5 items measured on a 5-point Likert scale. We considered as explanatory variables the year of study and scientific area, sex, age, love rela-tionship, professional situation and BMI.
Results:
The WbHPS showed good psychometric properties, indicating the presence of an explanatory factor of 58.45% of variance and a good internal consistency (α = .81). The obtained results identified WbHPS as being inde-pendently associated with being in a love relationship, having a normal weight and not being displaced after starting at university.
Conclusions:
It is necessary to (re)think about disease prevention and health promotion actions in higher education, with psy-chosocial interventions that truly reflect on the well-being and health of university students.
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