For those who held a part time job during term, the average time worked

was 15 hours per week.  Over half (56%) of all full time undergraduate

students engaged in paid employment during term time. One in five (21%)

worked over 16 hours per week (Table 4). There was no significant

difference between males and females or across year in college.

4.3 GENERAL HEALTH

Students were asked to rate their general health on a scale from 1 to 5 on

three different measures; perceived general health, satisfaction with health

and quality of life. Overall, 54% of the undergraduate students perceived

their general health as excellent or very good, a further 33% said good,

11% fair or poor. Nearly two thirds (63%) were satisfied with their health and

11% were dissatisfied.  For quality of life, 87% thought their quality of life

was very good or good, while 2% rated it as poor. There were significant

gender differences with female students rating their quality of life higher

than their male counterparts while male students perceived their general

health as better than females (Figure 3).  

Figure 3: General Health and Quality of Life by gender

Perceived General Health 

Quality of Life

40

60

39 40

36

54 53

35

34

50

30

40

25

35

31

%20

18

%30

15

13

11

20

10

9

12 11

10

5

Males

3

1 1

1

1

1

Females

0

Excellent

V.

Good

Fair

Poor

0

V. Good Good Neither Poor V. Poor

Good

There were three main sources where students accessed information about

their health   the family GP, friends and the media.  Significantly more

female students used these three sources than their male counterparts

(Table 5). Despite most students having access to the internet in colleges

only 4% of students used the internet to source health information. 

23