ARTICLE INFO

Article Type

Qualitative Study

Authors

Gholipour   S. (*)






(*) Sociology Department, Social Science Faculty, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran

Correspondence

Address: Sociology Department, Social Science Faculty, Razi University, Tagh-Bostan, Daneshgah Street, Kermanshah, Iran
Phone: +98 (83) 34277605
Fax: -
gholipoor.sia@gmail.com

Article History

Received:  December  25, 2016
Accepted:  April 25, 2017
ePublished:  May 30, 2017

BRIEF TEXT


… [1]. Most veterans have lower quality of life than ordinary people, and they generally face a lot of social, cultural and health problems affecting their families and the community.

… [2]. The World Health Organization considers a broad concept of quality of life which is a combination of physical health, psychological status, independence level, social relationships, and individual beliefs and the relationship between these factors and environmental characteristics [3]. … [4-7]. Leisure time and the presence of people in natural and recreational environment have a significant positive effect on the physical and mental health of individuals and increase the level of social links and social satisfaction. Therefore, the more people use the public, the natural and recreational spaces, and their leisure time is more potent in different aspects, they will have more relationships and interactions, and they will be healthier and more psychologically healthy, which ultimately can affect their quality of life [8].

Veterans do not have 100% chance of solving everyday problems. Therefore, they need special services and attention so they can enjoy a decent quality of life. The purpose of this study was to investigate how the veterans were serviced in terms of type of injury and to improve their quality of life.

This study was a combined (quantitative and qualitative) methods [9-12]. The quantitative method was survey and the qualitative method was ground theory.

This study was conducted in 2014 among the veterans with over 25% injury in Kermanshah province who were 9208 people.

The sample size was 368 people based on the Cochran formula. In the quantitative section, sampling was a combination of systematic and categorical sampling, and in the qualitative section, the sampling was purposive.

The data gathering tool in the quantitative section was a questionnaire and in the qualitative method, the tools were interview, observation, living experience, and document review. The questionnaire evaluated the following issues: 1) Educational services (including fees for private schools of the martyr’s families, services of schools of the martyr`s families, cost of university entrance exam preparation classes, encouragement of top students, student transfer fees, student tuition fees, student allowance, use of quotas in enrollment, and reinforcement of students' background knowledge, 2) welfare services (including components of housing assignment, land allotment, housing allowance, housing deposit, mortgage loan, mortgage, marriage allowance, property exemption, car facilities, and exemption from military service), 3) Sporting services (including the dispatching component for sports and fitness exercises), 4) Cultural services (including components of cultural awards and gifts, trip to pilgrimage centers, meetings and visits of officials, counselling and assistance services, and participation in veterans weekly events), 5) Health care services (including components of hospital costs, general health insurance, supplementary health insurance, ambulance services, medical equipment, rehabilitation, para-clinical services, infertility services, physiotherapy, dental services, special medications, different types of hospitalization and surgery, hospital administrative affairs, different types of prevention and health monitoring), 6) Services in the cooperative sector (including components of supplementary expenses on supplementary insurance, veterans' insurance, life and accidents insurance and maintenance of disabled children), 7) Services in urban areas (including the components of pavement design, street, bus, and public transportation design, residential areas, government buildings, schools, and universities, parks and shopping centers and passages), 9) family status, and 10)quality of life. Validity of these indicators was obtained through content validity, and construct validity and reliability was achieved through factors analysis and Cronbach's alpha coefficient (0.85).The variable of quality of life was evaluated through three physical, psychological and social factors that Cronbach's alpha coefficients for physical, psychological, and social factors were 0.80, 0.83, and 0.90 respectively. Data analysis was performed in a quantitative method based on SPSS 20 software and in the qualitative method through open and closed coding and data organization. To determine the relationship between educational, welfare, sport, culture, health and medical, cooperative, urban areas, and leisure activities and type of injury, chi-square and V-Kramer test and to determine the relationship between family status and quality of life with the type of injury, univariate analysis of variance and Scheffe test were used.

In all interviews, veterans considered the existence of veterinary classes as essential, and they strongly needed it (Table 1). Satisfaction with service delivery: Satisfaction with service delivery in educational, welfare, sporting, cultural, and service in the cooperative sector did not correlate with type of injury (p>0.05). In the medical and therapeutic services section, the type of injury only affected the satisfaction of supplementary health insurance (p=0.03; v=0.187) and dental services (p=0.02; v=0.41). In the urban area, the type of injury had effect on the satisfaction of pavement design (p=0.009; v=0.236), street (p=0.05; v=0.202), buses and public transportation (p=0.0003; v=0.17), parks (p=0.006; v=0.171) and shopping centers and markets (p=0.002; v=0.181). In the domain of leisure time, the type of injury was effective on the watching of television entertainment program (p=0.0001; v=0.222), participation in religious ceremonies (p=0.007; v=0.139), listening to cultural music (p=0.0001, v=0.199), and religious programs on TV (p=0.002; v=0.180, going to park (p=0.0001; v=0.204) and using of satellite channels (p=0.0001; v=0.28). However, it did not have any effect on going to the cinema, studying and reading newspapers (p>0.05). The status of veterans in their family: The mean difference between veterans' status within the family was not statistically significant in terms of type of injury (p> 0.05). Although the mean was not significant, the highest positions in the family was related to the amputee (25.24±5.51), special (25.02±4.24), combined (24.37±4.70), nervous and psychic (24.28±5.25), and chemical (24.14±4.04) injuries respectively from top to down. Quality of life: The mean of life quality based on type of injury was statistically significant (p=0.0001). The highest mean life quality was related to amputee (119.94±23.29), special (115.55±20.96), combined (113.56±18.74), nervous and psychic (108.52±17.16) and chemical (103.59±21.48) injuries respectively. The chemical and amputee veterans had the worst and best conditions respectively. With the probability of more than 95%, the difference between the mean quality of life (16.34) between the amputee and chemical veterans (p=0.001) and the difference between the mean quality of life (11.42) between the amputee veterans and psychic and nervous veterans (0.02) can be generalized to the statistical community. On the whole, the quality life of amputee veterans was much better. They are physically more comfortable and psychologically more successful in social interaction with the community and family. However, the chemical and nervous and psychic veterans were at a lower level.



It is recommended that the authorities take the necessary measures in order to improve the quality of life of the loved veterans, taking into account the expressed needs and the level of the satisfaction of the veterans.

The limitations of this study include: 1. Our information about the population of the statistical community was about wo years ago, which brought us some problems; for example, in some cases their telephone number had been changed and there was no access to them, or by referring to their houses we were noticed that they had moved to another neighborhood or city. Also, some of our selected samples were died and their families were not willing to cooperate. 2. Many of our samples were suspicious about us and we had to spend a lot of time answering to their questions about where had come from. They did not take our reference letter seriously, and they verified it through contact with the Foundation's Security Sector.

Satisfaction with the educational, welfare, sporting, cultural, and cooperative section services is not related to the type of injury. However, the way of health care services in the components of complementary health insurances and dental services, the way of services in the domain of urban space in the components of designing of the pavement, buses and public transport, parks, and shopping centers and the way of spending leisure time in the components of watching entertainment programs in the television, participation in the religious programs, listening to the cultural music, listening to the religious programs on television, going to the parks and using satellite channels have relationships with type of injury. Also, the type of injury is effective on the life quality of the veterans.

The honorable authorities of the Kermanshah Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs, especially Ms. Ebrahimi, and Ms. Cheraghi are appreciated and thanked.

Non-declared

The necessary permissions for the research were obtained from the Security Sector of the Kermanshah Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs.

This project was sponsored by the Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs of the Kermanshah Province.

TABLES and CHARTS

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