The Relationship between the Meaning of life and Hope with Mental Health and its Comparison in Disabled Veterans and Patients Suffering from Cancer

The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between the meaning of life and hope with mental health and compare it in two groups of disabled veterans and cancer patients.

This is an applied study in terms of purpose, and with respect to method it is a correlational and causal-comparative study. The statistical population included all the disabled veterans admitted to Sasan Hospital who had at least one year of hospitalization and the cancer patients at Imam Khomeini Hospital. A group of 400 people was randomly selected as the sample using the Ailment Symptom Scale, the Hope Scale and the Meaning of Life Scale. The results were analyzed using correlation analysis and analysis of covariance.

The results revealed that there is an inverse, significant relationship between hope and meaning of life with the rate of the prevalence of mental disorders in the people under study (P > 0.01). It was further revealed that the level of hope of the disabled veterans and their meaning of life is significantly more positive than that of the cancer patients (P > 0.01), and the level of mental health of the disabled veterans is higher than that of the cancer patients (P > 0.01).

The existence of a significant relationship between hope and meaning of life indicates we can considerably reduce the prevalence of mental disorders among disabled veterans and cancer patients through meaning therapy and increasing hope. Also, comparative evaluations indicate that disabled veterans’ having spiritual reasons for their suffering and disability and honoring them in society can greatly affect their meaning of life and level of hope, and they can enjoy better mental health than cancer patients by gaining social support.