The trajectories of self‐rated health (SRH) illustrate how health status changes over time and how these changes relate to overall quality of life. This study uses growth mixture modeling (GMM) to analyze longitudinal survey data from Chinese university students, focusing on SRH trajectories during the transition from undergraduate to graduate studies and their impact on life satisfaction. The study sample comprised 397 students from the dataset who transitioned from the third year of undergraduate studies to the completion of their graduate programs, including 226 males and 171 females. SRH was categorized into “high‐declining” and “high‐stable” groups. The “high‐declining” group showed a gradual health decline, especially in later graduate years, whereas the “high‐stable” group maintained stable health. Binary logistic regression indicated that gender and mother’s education level were statistically significant at the 10% level on trajectory classification. Furthermore, life satisfaction in the “high‐declining” group significantly decreased during the later graduate years, whereas the “high‐stable” group’s life satisfaction remained stable. These findings suggest that declining health status can cumulatively affect life satisfaction, particularly as academic and life stressors intensify in later graduate years. This study highlights the long‐term implications of health trajectories for quality of life and underscores the importance of health management during transitional periods.
Guo et al. (Thu,) studied this question.