UTILIZACIóN DEL TIEMPO LIBRE DE ESTUDIANTES DEL áREA DE SALUD DE LA INSTITUCIóN EDUCACIONAL SANTO TOMAS, TALCA

it is a descriptive, cross-sectional and correlative study, in which the use of leisure time of the students from santo tomás educational institute in talca, is analyzed. these are students from careers of the health área: nursing, kinesiology, nurses aid technician and laboratory odontology technician. the primary source of information was obtained through the appli catión of an inquiry, on june 6,2006. the number of compiled data was of 494. there was a descriptive and correlative analysis, contingency tables and anova. results show that the kind of activities students do, are sedentary. watching tv and sleeping are the activities they do most in their free time. in general, men have more free time than women. those students who drink more alcoholic drinks have even more free time than the rest. university students dedícate more time to their studies than those students of technologic careers, who dedícate more time to job to get a salary.