Qualidade de vida, autopercepção de saúde, motivação para aprender e desempenho escolar de adolescentes

Abstract

Introduction: Adolescents' quality of life and motivation to learn, once individual and contextual factors are considered, deserve attention by health and education professionals in order to expand the comprehension of this transitional phase. Encouraging self-care and skills development is fundamental for fostering the growth of people ready for lifelong self-realization and knowledge-seeking. Objective: To verify the association between quality of life, learning motivation, sociodemographic profile, self-perception of health, family environment resources, school performance and capabilities and shortcomings of elementary school students from a private school. Methods: An observational, analytical and cross-sectional study of 124 adolescents who completed the personal characterization questionnaires, Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory - PedsQL™ - adolescents version, Motivation for Learning Scale - EMAPRE, Health Self-Perception, Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire - SDQ and their parents or guardians filled the Brazil Economic Classification Criteria - CCEB, the PedsQLTM Parent Version and the Family Environment Resource Inventory - RAF. School performance was obtained by averaging subject grades in the studied school year. For data analysis, the study analyzed descriptively the variables, by means of absolute and relative frequency distribution of categorical and continuous numerical synthesis, bivariate and multivariate association analysis, using Pearson's chi-square test, Fisher's exact and chi-square of the trends. The data were also submitted to confirmatory factor analysis, internal consistency and inferential analysis for the psychometric analysis of the EMAPRE instrument. The initial and final models in the multiple logistic regression analysis were adjusted by the Hosmer and Lemeshow test. Results: Most participants are female, belong to socioeconomic class A and declared to have good or excellent self-perception of health. Most parents and adolescents evaluated positively the physical, psychosocial and general quality of life dimensions. The parents’ perspective showed overall quality of life as associated with self-rated health and psychosocial dimension; while overall quality of life was associated with age, according to adolescents' perception. Most students' academic performance was excellent (12%) or very good (40%). In the descriptive analysis of EMAPRE, there was a higher median distribution of scores in the Goal Learning domain, indicating better motivational quality in most participants. Through factor analysis, the three factors explained 40.56% of the total variance both in the principal component analysis as well as in the Varimax rotation. The internal consistency analysis presented Goal Learn, Goal Performance-Approach, and Performance-Avoidance domains with Cronbach's Alpha α = 0.795, α = 0.798 and α = 0.801, respectively, showing good tool reliability. Teenagers who rated their quality of life as high were 2.5 times more likely to be highly motivated to learn. Students with higher pro-social behavior showed higher motivational quality and students who rated their health as good / excellent had a 92% lower chance of having higher learning avoidance. Conclusion: The evidence shows that having good self-perception of health increased the chances of having a good quality of life and a one-year increase in age decreased the chance of the adolescent having a positive assessment of quality of life. The psychometric analysis of the EMAPRE instrument demonstrated its adequacy for the studied population, expanding the suitability to be applied in a different population than the one surveyed to construct the scale. Motivation to learn was associated with the variables age, school year, quality of life, abilities and self-rated health of adolescents. Family environment resources, school performance and adolescents' difficulties were also related to motivation to learn, when using bivariate analysis. The sociodemographic profile variable was not associated with the other variables considered in the sample under study. Knowing the relationship between physical, emotional and contextual aspects, and their influence on the quality of life and motivation to learn in high school teenagers support decisions in favor of more effective strategies for the comprehensive education of students.