The social support, healthy lifestyle, subjective well-being, and health-related quality of life among university students

BACKGROUND:The health-related quality of life and subjective well-being of young people need to be confirmed at the population level by identifying protective factors such as social support and their current healthy lifestyle. This study aims to examine a healthy lifestyle as a mediator of the associations between perceived social support to subjective well-being and health-related quality of life and also to analyze the associations between all these variables.METHODS AND MATERIALS:This study was conducted by cross-sectional survey of university students (N = 348) derived from ten cities/municipalities in East Kalimantan, Indonesia. Recruitment of respondents was performed through convenience sampling and by sharing open questionnaire links on integrated social media. The data were collected between April and June 2023 and taken from an online self-administered questionnaire. Instruments used consisted of demographics, the multidimensional scale of perceived social support, overall healthy lifestyle, BBC subjective well-being scale, and EQ-5D-5L (EuroQol) for health-related quality of life. Data have been analyzed using descriptive statistics, T-test and ANOVA, Pearson's correlation, and multiple linear regression.RESULTS:The results showed a significant association between the domain of perceived social support, healthy lifestyle, subjective well-being, and health-related quality of life. This research also proves that a healthy lifestyle can be a mediator of the association between perceived social support and health-related quality of life and also subjective well-being among university students.CONCLUSIONS:These findings suggest that youth lifestyle indicators are one of the domains that can be considered for use in research on subjective well-being and health-related quality of life, which are supported by perceived social support at the population level.