The role of Spiritual and Psychological Well-being in Predicting High-risk Behaviors of Young Prisoners in Zanjan

High-risk behaviors are particularly important when young people are considered to be failures and offenses. That’s why identifying effective factors in preventing or reducing these behaviors is really important. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine the role of spiritual and psychological well-being in predicting high-risk behaviors of young prisoners in Zanjan city.

The research method was descriptive-correlation. The population included all the young prisoners in Zanjan aged between 18 and 35 (n=500). The sample size was calculated 220 using Cochran method. The participants were selected using random sampling. The data collection tool were standard questionnaires of high-risk behaviors by Mohammad Khani, psychological well-being by Riff, and spiritual well-being by Paloutzian and Ellison. Pearson correlation test and multiple regression were used for data analysis. All ethical issues were observed in this study and the researchers reported no conflicts of interest.

There is a significant relationship between spiritual well-being and religious well-being with high-risk behaviors (p<0.05). As for the components of personal growth, positive relationship with others and its acceptance component with some high-risk behaviors were confirmed in this study. The results of regression table showed that total spiritual well-being has the potential to predict the high-risk behaviors of aggressive behavior, relationship with the opposite sex, cigarette and hookah smoking, alcoholic drinks, and drugs and narcotics. Also, Positive relationship with others had the potential to predict the high-risk behaviors of thoughts and suicide attempts (p<0.001).

The general spiritual well-being and religious well-being can be effective in reducing the high-risk behaviors of the young prisoners.