Quality of Life of Healthcare College Students in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Aim: The aim of this study was to assess the quality of life (QOL) and its influencing factors among healthcare college students in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among healthcare students at King Saud University. A modified version of the Arabic World Health Organization Quality of Life-BREF (WHOQOL-BREF) questionnaire, including 25 questions, was used to assess students' QOL. Data were collected through an online survey and analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 26 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY). Descriptive and regression statistics were used.

Results: A total of 547 healthcare students completed the questionnaire during the data collection period. Of all the students, 39.7% were from applied medical college, 62.5% were females, 98.9% were single, and 91.8% were non-smokers. Regarding academic status, 58.3% did not participate in any extracurricular activity, 42.6% had an academic advisor, and 80.4% had a grade point average (GPA) higher than 4.1. The average QOL score across all domains was moderately good (60.30 ± 16.0), whereas the physical domain showed the poorest score (46.89 ± 14.8) while the environmental domain had the greatest score (68.04 ± 20.6). The environmental domain was the only domain that showed significant differences between healthcare colleges (p < 0.001). Moreover, students who were male (p = 0.009), non-smokers (p = 0.023), reported living with family/friends (p = 0.031), and from families with high monthly income (p < 0.001) had significantly higher environmental QOL scores than their counterparts.

Conclusions: The study found that healthcare students had moderately good mean QOL scores. The environmental domain was the only QOL domain that showed significant differences between healthcare colleges with the greatest score among medical college students. Gender, smoking status, residence status, and family monthly income were found to have a strong association with students' environmental QOL scores. Institutions need to focus on the regular measurement of students' QOL, which facilitates implementing strategies that can promote their overall QOL and subsequently positively impact their performance academically and practically.