The relationship between social capital and social health and organizational health of personnel working in a military hospital

Attention to social capital as an important asset for building and maintaining healthy and empowered organizations have been obvious and apparent. This study aims to examine the social capital status and its relationship with organizational health and social health of military staff.

In this cross-sectional study, the study population was randomly selected from all administrative staff is a military hospital in Tehran, Iran. Data collection was done by demographic questionnaire, Feldman organizational health questionnaire, researcher-made questionnaire of social capital and Keyes Social Health Questionnaire. Data were analyzed by SPSS 16 software.

There is a significant positive correlation between the dimensions of social capital [reciprocity, trust, social participation, public awareness, sense of responsibility and beliefs [with social health and organizational health. In general, after performing the regression equation, the relationship of total social capital with the social and organizational health of hospital staff had correlations of 0.555 and 0.518, respectively. According to the coefficients of determination (28 and 26 percent), this means that 28% of social health changes are explained by social capital changes and 26% of organizational health changes are explained by social capital changes.

The direct relationship between social capital and social and organizational health can be explained by proper communication among the employees of the organization to enhance morale, higher performance and at the same time reduce work-related stress, conflicts, opposition and resistance, which ultimately increases organizational and social health.