Postgraduate Students: An Alert about Quality of Life

Abstract

Productivity demand of Brazilian Postgraduate Programs has increased as a result of global scientific and
technological competitiveness, leading to stresses among researchers and students. Thus, this work was aimed at
evaluating the quality of life of students of one Postgraduate Program in Agronomy through the WHOQOL-bref. Of
the 36 students evaluated, there was a predominance of single women, childless, with a median age of 27 years, in a
Master Degree, without paid work or scholarship. The sample studied presented values below the median of the
Brazilian population, when corrected for gender and age, for the psychological, social relations and environment
domains. Students with partner had lower values for physical and psychological domains and students with paid
work showed a lower value for physical domain. The work phase affected the quality of life. The values for the
environment domain increased when the student was writing the project, studying subjects and seeking theoretical
framework and decreased when the student was analysing the data. As the University is the dominant environment
for the students when in post graduation, the activities that are associated with academic infrastructure as library and
laboratories, and with human resources as teachers and colleagues are realized with successful in relation to those
that depend of the students themselves as the data analysis. These results alert us for the need for therapeutic
interventions aimed at improving the health conditions of postgraduate students.