Quality of life, subjective well-being, and religiosity in Muslim college students

The majority of published research in quality of life (QOL), subjective well-being (SWB), and religiosity has been carried out on Western populations. The objective of this study was to explore the associations between QOL, SWB, and religiosity in an Arabic, Muslim, and understudied sample.

A convenience sample of 224 Kuwait University undergraduates was recruited. Their ages ranged from 18 to 28 years. The Arabic version of the World Health Organization QOL scale-Brief (WHOQOL-Bref), along with six self-rating scales of physical health, mental health, happiness, satisfaction with life, religiosity, and strength of religious belief were used. The test–retest reliabilities of all the scales ranged between 0.72 and 0.88, indicating good temporal stability. All the correlations of the scales with criteria were significant and ranged from 0.39 to 0.65 indicating from acceptable to good criterion-related validity.

Sex-related differences were significant favoring men in nine out of the 13 scales. All the 66 correlations but two were significant and positive. The principal components analysis followed by varimax orthogonal rotation yielded two factors: “Quality of life and well-being” and “Religiosity”.

Based on the significant and positive correlations between QOL, SWB, and religiosity, it was concluded that religiosity may be considered as a salient component of, and a contributing factor to, QOL among this sample of Muslim college students. Therefore, Islamic beliefs and practices may have the potential to be integrated in the psychotherapeutic procedures among Muslim clients.