[Physical activity and quality of life]

Abstract

Physical activity is believed to be a form to restore the health of the harmful effects caused by a stressful work/study routine. The study comprises a transversal research which aims at analyzing the associations of the practice of sports activities in the quality of life of individuals. The sample was comprised 107 professors, 111 employees and 638 students of the Universidade Católica de Pelotas UCPEL-RS, totalizing 863 participants. WHOQOL-brief/OMS were used as a tool to evaluate quality of life as well as the Questionnaire of habitual physical activities translated and modified by Nahas-NuPAF/UFSC, 2001. Of the total, 394 are males and 469 are females. Of these, 313 are moderately active, 210 inactive, 207 active and 136 are very active. We can observe that, on average, the more active the person is, the better their quality of life is. Moreover, amongst the differences in the quality of life of people who practice physical activities compared with those who do not practice any activity, are not only the aspects of physical health, but also psychological and cognitive aspects. These results serve as a motivation to professionals of different areas to encourage and support the definition of physical activities routine for their patients.