Abstract
Quality of life is a subjective and multidimensional concept that includes all aspects of an individual’s life. Many investigations
indicate that marital satisfaction is an important determinant of quality of life and social support affects both marital
satisfaction and quality of life. Since medical staff face job stressors in their everyday life, in the present cross-sectional
study, the relationships between quality of life, marital satisfaction, and social support in medical staff in Tehran were
analyzed. Data collection was performed in 653 medical staff using socio-demographic questions, the SF-36 questionnaire, the
ENRICH Marital Satisfaction Inventory, and the Social Support Questionnaire. The results revealed that men reported significantly
higher quality of life and marital satisfaction than women, but there was no gender difference in social support. The quality
of life and marital satisfaction domains were found to be differentially correlated among male and female participants. All
domains of marital satisfaction were found to be significantly associated with the “vitality” and “mental health” domains
among females and “physical functioning” domain in the male. Also, social support was associated with almost all quality of
life domains in both sexes. The multiple regression analyses indicated that all the study variables combined with socio-demographic
factors can explain between 12 % and 28 % of the variance in quality of life domains. Therefore, focusing on these factors
could be an effective approach to improve quality of life in medical staff as a group with a stressful job.
indicate that marital satisfaction is an important determinant of quality of life and social support affects both marital
satisfaction and quality of life. Since medical staff face job stressors in their everyday life, in the present cross-sectional
study, the relationships between quality of life, marital satisfaction, and social support in medical staff in Tehran were
analyzed. Data collection was performed in 653 medical staff using socio-demographic questions, the SF-36 questionnaire, the
ENRICH Marital Satisfaction Inventory, and the Social Support Questionnaire. The results revealed that men reported significantly
higher quality of life and marital satisfaction than women, but there was no gender difference in social support. The quality
of life and marital satisfaction domains were found to be differentially correlated among male and female participants. All
domains of marital satisfaction were found to be significantly associated with the “vitality” and “mental health” domains
among females and “physical functioning” domain in the male. Also, social support was associated with almost all quality of
life domains in both sexes. The multiple regression analyses indicated that all the study variables combined with socio-demographic
factors can explain between 12 % and 28 % of the variance in quality of life domains. Therefore, focusing on these factors
could be an effective approach to improve quality of life in medical staff as a group with a stressful job.
- Content Type Journal Article
- Pages 1-18
- DOI 10.1007/s11482-012-9190-x
- Authors
- A. Rostami, Department of Social Work, Umeå University, 901 87 Umeå, Sweden
- M. Ghazinour, Department of Social Work, Umeå University, 901 87 Umeå, Sweden
- L. Nygren, Department of Social Work, Umeå University, 901 87 Umeå, Sweden
- M. Nojumi, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
- J. Richter, Centre for Child and Adolescent Mental Health, Oslo, Norway
- Journal Applied Research in Quality of Life
- Online ISSN 1871-2576
- Print ISSN 1871-2584