The Mediating Roles of Marital Satisfaction and Perceived Social Support in the Relationship between Spiritual Attitudes and Quality of Life in Psychiatric Veterans

Abstract

Background: The Iran-Iraq War has left many consequences on veterans and their families over the years and it has potentially affected the veterans' quality of life. The present study aimed to determine the mediating role of marital satisfaction and perceived social support in the relationship between spiritual attitudes and quality of life in psychiatric veterans in Kermanshah province, Iran. Methods: The present cross-sectional study had a structural equation modeling performed on all psychiatric veterans under the protection of Martyr and Veterans Affairs of Kermanshah province in 2018. We used the simple random sampling method, and selected 10 to 15 samples for each parameter according to the rule of thumb; hence, the sample size was 280. We collected data using The World Health Organization Quality of Life-BREF (WHOQOL-BREF), the Spiritual Attitude Scale, and the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support. Furthermore, we utilized the bootstrap method to evaluate the significance of indirect relationships (paths) and mediation effects. We performed all analyses of the structural equations using AMOS 22. Results: The results indicated that the direct effects, and factor loadings of indicators on the latent variables of the model were significant at an alpha level of 0.05. Direct coefficients of spiritual attitude on marital satisfaction (β =0.45, P= 0.001) and spiritual attitude on perceived social support (β =0.14,P= 0.05) were positive and significant. Spiritual attitude had a positive and significant effect on the quality of life through marital satisfaction and perceived social support (β =0.22, P= 0.001). Conclusion: The results showed that spiritual attitudes increased the veterans' quality of life through mediating variables, namely marital satisfaction and perceived social support.