The Role of Gratitude and Forgiveness in Predicting the Mental Health of the Personnel of a Law Enforcement Unit

The purpose of this study is to determine the role of gratitude and forgiveness in predicting the mental health of the Personnel of a Law Enforcement Unit in Iran.

This is a correlational descriptive study. The statistical population of the present study included all the male personnel of a Law Enforcement Unit, who were at work in 2017. From among them, a group of 234 subjects was selected using the multistage random sampling method. The research instruments were the Symptom Check List Questionnaire (SCL-90- R), the McCullough and Immunes Gratitude Questionnaire and the Hartland Forgiveness Questionnaire.

The results of Pearson correlation showed that there is a significant negative relationship between gratitude and forgiveness, on the one hand, and mental health, on the other, (P<0.005), which implies that these two variables can predict mental health.

The findings of this research reveal that gratitude and self-forgiveness and forgiveness of others can predict the mental health of the Law Enforcement Force personnel. This finding can be used to improve the mental health of the Law Enforcement Force personnel.