Exploring Perceptions of Positive and Negative Impacts of Students' Well-Being on Their Physical Health

Abstract

With thousands of students attending university every year, little research has been conducted to assess whether there are positive or negative impacts of students’ well-being on their physical health. Using a qualitative online survey, we anonymously sampled McMaster University undergraduate students (n=45) which consisted of female (n=31) and male (n=12) participants. Our survey included questions such as: what is your satisfaction with your physical health and well-being, what activities do you associate with positive and negative well-being, what is your perceived level of stress throughout the school year, and how do you cope with stressful situations? Through a series of coding and identifying categorical variables, we analyzed our data by drawing on themes that related our research. This revealed relationships between students’ well-being and physical health, allowing us to make positive and negative correlations between well-being and physical health and compare them in their relation to university, in order to reveal the effects, they have on each other. We found that 73.3% of participants were “unsatisfied” with their well-being and 44.4% of participants are “unsatisfied” with their physical health. As well, 53.3% of students reveal that their level of stress increases during the school year, however most responses indicated positive word associations with the terms well-being and physical health, but negative word associations with the term university. Our research concluded that one’s well-being has serious implications on physical health, demonstrating that declining well-being can directly impact the physical health of university students.