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Quality of life, subjective well-being, and religiosity in Muslim college students

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Abstract

Background

The majority of published research in quality of life (QOL), subjective well-being (SWB), and religiosity has been carried out on Western populations. The objective of this study was to explore the associations between QOL, SWB, and religiosity in an Arabic, Muslim, and understudied sample.

Methods

A convenience sample of 224 Kuwait University undergraduates was recruited. Their ages ranged from 18 to 28 years. The Arabic version of the World Health Organization QOL scale-Brief (WHOQOL-Bref), along with six self-rating scales of physical health, mental health, happiness, satisfaction with life, religiosity, and strength of religious belief were used. The test–retest reliabilities of all the scales ranged between 0.72 and 0.88, indicating good temporal stability. All the correlations of the scales with criteria were significant and ranged from 0.39 to 0.65 indicating from acceptable to good criterion-related validity.

Results

Sex-related differences were significant favoring men in nine out of the 13 scales. All the 66 correlations but two were significant and positive. The principal components analysis followed by varimax orthogonal rotation yielded two factors: “Quality of life and well-being” and “Religiosity”.

Conclusions

Based on the significant and positive correlations between QOL, SWB, and religiosity, it was concluded that religiosity may be considered as a salient component of, and a contributing factor to, QOL among this sample of Muslim college students. Therefore, Islamic beliefs and practices may have the potential to be integrated in the psychotherapeutic procedures among Muslim clients.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by Kuwait University under Grant No. OP01/08. The author gratefully acknowledges the able assistance of the Research Administration team. I thank the Editor-in-Chief of this periodical as well as the reviewers for their helpful and valuable comments on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Ahmed M. Abdel-Khalek.

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Focus and plan of this research: The main aim of this study was to explore the relationship between quality of life (QOL), subjective well-being (SWB), and religiosity among a sample of Muslim college students in Kuwait.

The present research paper will present (a) an introduction to its main topic: quality of life (QOL), subjective well-being (SWB), religiosity, the association among the last-mentioned three constructs, and the Arabic studies on this domain, (b) the objectives of the present study, (c) the methods: participants, measures and procedure, (d) results section, and (e) the discussion.

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Abdel-Khalek, A.M. Quality of life, subjective well-being, and religiosity in Muslim college students. Qual Life Res 19, 1133–1143 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-010-9676-7

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