ARTICLE INFO

Article Type

Descriptive & Survey Study

Authors

Sadri Damirchi   E. (*)
Mohammadi   N. (1)






(*) Educational Sciences Department, Educational Sciences & Psychology Faculty, Mohaghegh Ardabili University , Ardabil, Iran
(1) Educational Sciences Department, Educational Sciences & Psychology Faculty, Mohaghegh Ardabili University, Ardabil, Iran

Correspondence

Address: Educational Sciences & Psychology Faculty, Mohaghegh Ardabili University, Danshgah Street, Ardabil, Iran
Phone: +98 (45) 31505644
Fax: +98 (45) 33520457
araz_sadri@yahoo.com

Article History

Received:  January  11, 2017
Accepted:  March 14, 2017
ePublished:  July 27, 2017

BRIEF TEXT


Studies on long-term effect of war on psychosocial status of veterans indicate that the passage of time does not improve the patient and the symptoms and disorders associated with it increase in veterans [1].

… [2-14]. Beigi et al. in their research concluded that social support and religious social activities (the subscale of spirituality) significantly predict the mental health of the veterans [15].

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of religious orientation and perceived social support in predicting spiritual well-being of veterans.

This study is descriptive-correlational.

This study was conducted in 2016 among all veterans of Rasht city with 7700 people.

A sample of 364 people was selected by random sampling based on the table of Morgan and Krejcie.

The data collection tool were Questionnaire of Spiritual Well-Being, Religious Orientation Questionnaire, and Perceived Social Support Questionnaire. 1. Questionnaire of Spiritual Well-Being: This test was made by Palutzin and Ellison in 1982 and consists of 20 questions and two subscales. The scale of answering to the questions is set in the form of six-degree Likert scale from “totally agree” to “totally disagree”. Palutzin and Ellison in a research reported the Cronbach’s coefficients of religious well-being, existential well-being and the total scale as 0.91, 0.91, and 0.93 respectively. … [16]. 2. Questionnaire of Religious Orientation: This questionnaire was first presented by Allport with 20 items (internal and external orientation with 11 and 9 items). Then Fingen introduced its new version with 21 items in 1963 by adding another option with a high correlation (0.61) with the external orientation. Therefore, 12 items of this questionnaire is related to external religious orientation, and 9 items are related to internal orientation. The lowest scores are for individuals with internal religious orientation, and the highest scores are for people with external religious orientation. The reliability of Alport religious orientation questionnaire has been confirmed by Janbozorgi by the Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.74 [17]. 3. Multidimensional Perceived Social Support Scale (MSPSS): This questionnaire was developed by Zimatt et al. [18] to measure perceived social support from family, friends, and important people in the life of a person. This scale has 12 items and the person gives opinion on a seven-dimensional scale from grade one to “totally disagree” to grade 7 for “fully agree”. Bervier et al. in 2008 reported the internal reliability of this tool in a sample of 788 high school students using Cronbach's alpha as 86% to 90%for the subscales of this tool and 86% for the total scale. … [19]. Statistical analysis Data analysis was performed using SPSS 18 software and Pearson Correlation Coefficient Tests to investigate the existence of significant relationship between the variables and stepwise regression analysis to determine the contribution and impact of variables on spiritual well-being.

345 male veterans with the mean age of 20.64±60.5 participated in this study. In terms of marital status, 25(7.2%) of these individuals were single and 320 (92.8%) were married. In terms of educational level, also, 87(25.2%), 159(46.1%), 54(15.6%), and 45(13.0%) of the participants had the educational level of high school, diploma, and higher than diploma respectively. The highest mean was related to the spiritual well-being variable and the lowest mean was for the internal religious orientation variable. Spiritual well-being had significant positive relationship between the internal religious orientation (r=0.60), perceived social support (r=0.87), religious well-being (r=0.54), and existential well-being (r=0.55) and it had significant negative relation with external religious orientation (r=-0.65; p<0.01; Table 1). The two variables of religious orientation and perceived social support in total explained 46% of the variance of spiritual well-being of which 14% was related to internal religious orientation, 7% was related to external religious orientation, and 25% was related to perceived social support (p<0.05).

The first finding showed that there is a significant positive correlation between internal religious orientation and well-being, and there is a negative significant correlation between external religious orientation and spiritual well-being, which is consistent with the findings of Kalantar and Hosseinizadeh [20], Karamzadeh Mansouri [21], Heidari et al. [7], Madahi et al. [8], Li et al. [22] and Dsroussirus & Miller [23]. The second finding of the present study suggests that there is a significant positive correlation between the perceived social support and spiritual well-being which is consistent with the findings of Stroub et al. [13], Lao et al. [14], Dehl and Landers [25], and Glousa [26]. … [27, 28].

It is suggested that appropriate programs and training be used to improve and strengthen factors such as religious orientation and perceived social support in order to increase the spiritual well-being of veterans.

Among the limitations of this research, sampling only from veteraning of Rasht city can be mentioned which limits the generalizability of the results.

Religious orientation and social support can predict the spiritual well-being of veterans, that is, with increasing the spiritual well-being of veterans by increasing internal religious orientation and perceived social support, the spiritual well-being level increases in the veterans.

All the veterans who helped us with this research have the highest praise and appreciation.

Non-declared

The satisfaction of all veterans participating in the study was obtained. Also, in order to observe ethical research, the names of all veterans were coded.

Non-declared

TABLES and CHARTS

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