The Meaning in Life and its Related Factors in Medical Sciences Students

The meaning of life has become one of the most important issues of the present age. The meaning of life refers to the main purpose and concept of each person's life and consists of the aspects of the existence of meaning and the search for meaning. The meaning of life has a vital role against stress and is related to the mental health of people. Students are one of the groups that are vulnerable to stress, so this study was conducted with the aim of determining the status of the meaning of life and its related factors among students.

This cross-sectional study was conducted among 163 students of Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences. The samples were collected using the Internet-based method. The data collection tool was the standard questionnaire on the meaning of life and demographic information. The data were analyzed in SPSS version 26 using descriptive and analytical statistics.

No statistically significant association was observed between the overall score of the meaning of life questionnaire and the score of the components of existence and search for meaning with different classes of gender, marital status, level of education, the field of study, economic status and the number of siblings (P>0.05). . However, the overall score of the meaning of life questionnaire (P=0.023) and the existence of meaning component (P=0.013) had a statistically significant difference between different age groups. Also, a positive and significant correlation was observed between the existence of meaning and the search for meaning (p<0.001, r=0.361).

According to the findings, the relationship between the meaning of life and demographic information is different in different cultures, so in each culture, their relationship should be measured separately.