Assessing the Relationship between Spiritual Wellbeing and Academic Citizenship Behaviors among Postgraduate Students at Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Iran

Spiritual wellbeing is the most recent aspect of health and is the sole force that harmonizes physical, mental, and social aspects. Academic citizenship behaviors are voluntary, humanitarian, value-based, and ethical acts carried out by students without any expectations. Therefore, the present study was designed to investigate the relationship between spiritual wellbeing and academic citizenship behaviors of postgraduate students of Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Iran. This was a descriptive-analytic study. The study population consisted of 350 postgraduate students of Kerman University of Medical Sciences. The subjects were selected from 7 schools of this university using proportionate sampling. Data collection tools were the Ellison’s and Paloutzian’s Spiritual Wellbeing Scale and the Academic Citizenship Behavior Questionnaire. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics in SPSS software. The spiritual wellbeing of postgraduate students was at medium and high levels and academic citizenship behavior of students was also at a high level. The spiritual health and academic citizenship behaviors of doctoral degree, female, married, and older students were higher than others. The higher the score of student's spiritual health was, the higher the score of academic citizenship behaviors was. According to the results of the study, it is recommended that more attention be given to the spiritual health of students. Moreover, curriculum related to ethics must be introduced by universities as an effective factor in positive values to students. In addition, through strengthening of students’ spiritual health, it can be expected that students with maximum ability and ethics will graduate and take responsibility for public health of the society.