Affiliations: Karolinska Institutet, Department of Clinical
Neuroscience, Section of Personal Injury Prevention, Stockholm, Sweden | Karolinska Institutet, Department of Public Health
Sciences, Division of Social Medicine, Stockholm, Sweden
Note: [] Address for correspondence: Marjan Vaez, PhD, Section of
Personal Injury Prevention, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska
Institutet, Box 12718, 112 94 Stockholm, Sweden. Tel.: +46 8 692 22 53; Fax:
+46 8 653 94 13; E-mail: [email protected]
Abstract: This study compares aspects of the health-related behaviors and
working life of first-year university students with those of their working
counterparts and assesses the roles of these aspects as predictors of each
groups' perceived quality of life (QoL). Subjects were taken from two
cross-sectional data sets (a student survey and a population survey) from the
Swedish central-western region of Östergötland. Male and female
respondents aged 20–35 years were extracted and comparison were made
considering in turn socio-demographic characteristics, health-related
behaviors, exposure to abusive events at work and perceived QoL. University
students smoked and used oral snuff in smaller proportions, they were not as
frequent drinkers as their working counterparts, but they tended to drink more
when they did drink. Threats and violence were less prevalent among students,
but sexual harassment, were almost as common. The strongest predictors of
perceived QoL for both groups are expected and former perceived QoL, followed
by current self-rated health.
