Percepción de sentido de vida en universitarios colombianos

Abstract

Objective.
This study was undertaken to describe the perception of the meaning of
life among university
students in Bogotá, this being defined by Martínez as affective-cognitive
perception of values that invite the
person to act in one way or another to specific situations or life i
n general, giving coherence and personal
identity. The objective was to characterize the perception of the meaning of l
ife according to the academic
area, gender and age of the participants.
Method.
The convenience sample consisted of 695 college students,
of whom 68.9% were women (479) and 31.1% were men (216), with mean
age of 22.17 years.
Results.
By
applying the Dimensional Scale of Meaning of Life, there were no significan
t differences found by gender,
36.7% of participants showed a low meaning of life and students
between 16 and 20 years showed a higher
score of meaning of life. Medical and nursing students showed higher s
cores meaning of life, however, students
of psychology and social communication had significantly lower scores than
other participants.
Conclusion.
This work constitutes a first general approach in the Colombian populat
ion, with an instrument developed and
validated for the country to characterize the meaning of life and raises new research
questions regarding the
mental health of students of psychology in view of its correlation w
ith the meaning of life reported in other
studies.