1. Journal of Social Issues & Humanities, Volume 2, Issue 11, November 2014
ISSN 2345-2633
367
The Relation between Happiness and Life
Expectancy among the Nurses in Tehran
Ali Moghadam
Abstract— This study aims to consider the relation between happiness and life expectancy among nurses working in Tehran’s hospitals.
Due to this particular occupation, the role of mental health and variety aspects of happiness and life expectancy is of grand importance.
The whole population of this research includes all nurses of Tehran city. Among them,97 persons were chosen as the sample of the study.
samples were selected by applying random sampling method. The method of the study was correlation descriptive. Measuring instruments
consistence Oxford happiness questionnaire and HERTH hope. For analyzing, Pearson correlation method was utilized. The results show
that there is a relationship between happiness and life expectancy.
Index Terms— Happiness, Life Expectancy.
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1 INTRODUCTION
NE of the most important occupation in our society is
nursing. Nurses dui to their particular occupation, per-
manently are in relation to people, increasingly not only
effect on patients but also effected by them, according to the
positive psychology, positive factors life happiness and expec-
tancy could prevent people from the effect life stressful event.
Nursing are of these groups that with analyzing of their situa-
tion we can talce some strategy in order to improve their
states both from the mental and positional aspect.
Studies showed that, permanent en countering with patients,
being respon sible of peoples health, having too physical ac-
tion, being in relation with patients who are the point of death
and exposuring to necessity and emergency situations can
reduce nurses proper performance and affect their mental and
physical health.(Greened ,Jim a Roger,2001)
Nursing as the only professional groups that during their 24
services to patients, are both responsible for people’s health
and coordination of other members of mental group.( Heroa-
badi and Marbaghi 1997)
Psychologists made the greate efforts to improve these sym-
phonies, but after the emerge of the positive psychological
movement, researchers do not limit their studies merely to
negative thoughts or experience and instead, they are seeking
to analyze the positive factor like self-possessed spirituality,
happiness, optimism and expectancy.(snyder and
Cullough2000)
The positive effect of these factors on physical and mental
health are proved in many studies.( Snyder and colleagues
1997).the previous studies showed that there is the high corre-
lation between hope and positive felling ,self-esteem and also
have the negative relationship with depression. ( Snyder and
colleagues 1997)
Because of the important role of this group of workers, it is
recessing to determine the relationship between happiness
and life expectancy in nurses life.
Expectancy is the factor which is closely related to optimism.
Snyder (2000)and is divided into two elements:1-the ability of
making the ways to achieve desired gods, despite of the exist-
ent setbacks and 2-applying incentives two element. Accord-
ing to this conceptualizing, expectancy can be effective when
involve goods and despite the existent challenging problems
which are solvable, achieving to them are gradually likely.
when we are assure of achieving to our assure of achieving to
our goads, we are disappointed. With the increase single role
of happiness and the effect of this on physical and mental
health and prosperity, researcher, psychologists and even
peoples direction of thoughts about happiness have changed.
There are a lot of statements about what is happiness. Accord-
ing to Aristotle, happiness is spiritual life and john lack and
Jeremy Bentham believe that happiness is a life full of fun and
desirable events(Eyseneck 1990).some psychologists believe
that happiness is one of necessity excitements , which are as
follow: anger, fear , hate , wonder ,happiness , and sad-
ness.(Kalat 1984).some of psychologist believe that happiness
is the collection of the positive feeling, not existence of nega-
tive feeling and the life satisfaction.( Argyle and
Cullough1990).The most comprehensive as well as the most
practical definition of happiness has been proposed by Veen-
hoven .According to him, happiness defined as a degree of
once whole satisfaction of life or in other word happiness
means that has much a person like his their life.
Baily and Snyder (2007)proposed that the level of expectancy
has a direct relation with happiness and life satisfaction and
the level of expectancy in old adults, divorced or widowed
people is low.
Wellz(2005)found that 27% of depression variance determined
by low expectancy and learn people how to be hope full can
lead to depression reduction. The street anxiety , poor educa-
tion and sex are the predictors of low expectancy. He , also
proposed that there is a close relationship between the satis-
faction income and desirable social position. And also this
relation was seen between expectancy and psycho there pea
tic consequences.
O
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 E-mail: ali_hvpm@yahoo.com

2. Journal of Social Issues & Humanities, Volume 2, Issue 11, November 2014
ISSN 2345-2633
368
Elliot and colleagues (1991)proved that in the process of im-
proving spinal damages , high expectancy better compatibility
and low depression, have the positive effect
Eslami nasab (1993) believes that expectancy can effect on the
quality of our communication with others so that hopeless
people have the great problem in they expect to fail and in-
terpreted every worth less events badly.
Okun, Stoch, Haring and Witter(1984) in their ultra analytical
studies found that correlation between happiness and health is
32% the happiness has a positive effected health and good
temper, increase the immune system activity. In addition, the
effect of happiness on mental health is related to cognitive
process such as, the attitude toward life and considering your-
self different.
Now, with all definitions and interpretations, analyzing the
happiness and life expectancy from different aspect are so im-
portant, one of them is the important role of happiness and
expectancy on mental health and the one is that happiness and
expectancy are factors that can be in relation with each other.
Hypothesis: there is relationship between happiness and life
expectancy of nurses in Tehran.
2 METHOD
The population of this survey includes all nurses working in
different sections of Tehran hospitals. 97 samples regard less
of their age were selected randomly, that is after listing the
name of all hospital, we selected some hospital by chance and
then, the list of this hospitals nurses, provided and among
them we look nurses randomly.
3 MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
The Oxford happiness inventory which is based on beck de-
pression questionnaire BDI, was made by Argyle in 1989.21
item from all item of BDI questionnaire were taken and 11
item added to them in order to cover all other aspect of mental
health.
Like Beck depression test, every item of the happiness ques-
tionnaire in clued 4 alternative that every examinee, according
to his/her present situation, should select one of them. This
method are used widely in surveys which are about happi-
ness.
A)foreign: Argyle and his colleagues record the reliability of
the Oxford questionnaire by using Cronbach a coefficient 0/90
and the validity of retest was 78% after seven week. The sim-
ultaneous validity of this questionnaire by other evaluation
was estimated 0/43. Also , since happiness are of three parts
:positive feeling , sates faction and not existing of negative
felling , correlation of this questionnaire was calculated by
Brad Bern positive feeling scale (0/32) and Argyle life sates
faction. index (0/57) and beck depression questionnaire (0/52)
B)Iranian: The Oxford happiness inventory was translated by
Alipour and Nourballa and the accuracy of their translation
were confirmed by eight experts. The questionnaire formed
validity also was confirmed by ten expert. For analyzing of
validity and reliability of this questionnaire,110 students from
Allameh Taba Tabai and shahed were selected to talce part in
this study.
The Cronbach a coefficient and reliability were 0/98 and 0/92
respectively. Also ,reliability by retest method was 0/79 after
three weeks.
This test was consisted of 29 multiple choice items that the
score of every option is: a)0 b)1 c)2 d)3 then, the highest
mark that was obtained by the examinee is 87 which indi cute
the highest level of happiness and the lowest mark of this
scale is a which represent that the examinee is depressed. The
desirable mark in this test between 40 to 42.
In this study, the tool of measuring is HERTH life expectancy
questionnaire. This test in order to evaluate the level of life
expectancy was made. This test consisted of 12 multiple choice
question which distributed among 20 patients in Northern
Illinois and retest was performed en 172 patients(70 critial,72
chronic and 31 at the point of death )in Northern Illinois, then
the cronbah a coefficient was estimated 97% and coefficient
correlation of the retest was 91% . The answer of this test were
alternatives like agree, not sure, disagree , and there is no limi-
tation time. In item 3 and 6, option agree obtained 1, not sure 2
and disagree 3 scores, and the other items were marked vice
versa. In this scale the marks 12 to 24 represent low expectan-
cy, 25 to 30 indicate moderate expectancy and 31 to 36 repre-
sent high expectancy. In 1999 Tayebeh pour ghaznein gained
its validity the validity was calculated by parsons correlation
coefficient and cronback a coefficient, 84% and 76% respective-
ly, which the first one stand for time steadiness and the second
one represent inner steadiness.
4 RESULT METHOD
In this study we use the correlation descriptive method. Find-
ing the relationship between happiness and life expectancy is
the purpose of this study. In order to analyze the data, Pearson
correlation method was applied.
5 FINDINGS
The finding are presented In table 1.
TABLE 1
MEAN, STANDARD DEVIATION AND VARIANCE OF HAPPINESS
AND LIFE EXPECTANCY’S DATA
meanvarianceStandard
deviation
To-
talindex
group
32/759/3553/05897Life expec-
tancy
42/19137/34011/7297Happiness
TABLE 2
RESULT OF THE CORRELATION BETWEEN HAPPINESS AND LIFE
EXPECTANCY
T fiririSignificance
level
Correlationdf

3. Journal of Social Issues & Humanities, Volume 2, Issue 11, November 2014
ISSN 2345-2633
369
7/980/2600/63495
Result: According to table 2, there is meaningful relationship
between happiness and life expectancy. Result show that there is
meaningful relation in P>0/01 level. The amount of correlation
coefficient between total score of happiness and life expectancy is
0/634.
6 RESULT AND DISCASSION
In the present survey we are seeking to determine the relation-
ship between happiness and life expectancy. In this study Teh-
ran nurses happiness and life expectancy were considered.
The population was Motaharri, Modarres and Shahid beheshti
hospital nurses , among them 97 selected and took them the
happiness and life expectancy questionnaire. After complet-
ing, the questionnaire were gathered. The obtained date were
analyzed by using Spss 18 program. Result showed that corre-
lation between happiness and life expectancy was 0/634 and
this represent that in P>0/01 level there is a meaningful rela-
tionship and then the hypothesis statement confirmed and
matched with previous data.
Jones and colleagues(2003) in one study , found that there
is the close relationship between cognitive and psychological
factor and adults happiness.
Wellz(2005) in his study based on the happiness interfer-
ences in the old adults, found that the percent of depression
determined by low expectancy and there is a relationship be-
tween expectancy and psychotherapy consequences like hap-
piness .
Irving, Snyder and Crowson in following of their study on
women who suffer from cancer , came to this conclusion that,
those patients with high level of hope, have move life expec-
tancy and they can cope with their disease better. Also Elliot
and colleagues (1991) in their studies which were based on the
effect of hope on the improvement of spinal damages found
that there is the dissect relationship between high expectancy,
low depression and life expectancy.
Afshan Ghasemi and colleagues (2008)showed that the ex-
pectancy cooperative have a good effect on old adults happi-
ness.
Farrokh Naderi and siedeh Mounes Hosseini (2009)found
this fact there is the relationship between the life expectancy
and intransigence of psycho cognition in girl and boy stu-
dents.
Zohre Kamyab and colleagues (2009)in their study, analyze
the effect of happiness training according to Fordyce method
on the people happiness who suffer from diabetes, and result
show that this instruction influence patients low happiness.
Alipour and Arab’s(2010) studies showed that there is also
the relationship between life expectancy and happiness of
teachers.
So, according to the obtained result, life expectancy and
happiness effect on human mental health should be empha-
sized more and there is need to move investigation. Due to the
nurse’s particular occupation, more studies are needed, and
because of the positive effect of happiness and life expectancy
on mental health , we can claim that our research was mean-
ing full.
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