Relationship between resilience and quality of life in Chinese undergraduate university students

In this chapter we aim to investigate the relationship between resilience and quality of life (QOL) amongst undergraduate students across nine Beijing universities in China. A two stage cluster randomly selected sample and study design was used. There were 2,700 students were invited to attend to the study, and 2,046 students responded to the survey with high response rate of 75.8 percent. A standardised QOL questionnaire was used to assess university students perceived physical, mental health of QOL. Standardised resilience scales were used to determine their association with QOL. Multivariate linear regression analysis was used to analyse the association of QOL to resilience and social capital while demographic variables including age and gender were adjusted in the model. There were 26 percent of variances explained by resilience for physical health and 27.7 percent explained for mental health of QOL. The strongest explanatory variables in determining QOL were primarily focused on the individual's perception of self in the context of being a student (sense of self-acceptance, sense of autonomy, purpose of life, and personal growth) and also based on their involvement in the wider population (environmental mastery, and relations with others). These results suggest that resilience is an important factor to determine their QOL when they develop their ability to cope university life and be prepared to transit to the adult life.