An Estimate of Happiness among Students of Tehran University of Medical Sciences: A Means for Policy Making In Management of Health System

Dear Editor, Happiness has several main components including the emotional component-the presence of contentment and affection; the social component-the presence of good social relationships and the ability to receive support; and finally the cognitive component that causes the happy person to interpret information in a special way that leads to joy and optimism. Consequently, peoples' assessment of themselves and their lives can include cognitive aspects-like judgments about life satisfaction-or emotional aspects like mood and affect. 5-8 Life satisfaction is defined as a level of personal awareness or more appropriately , a cognitive assessment of quality of life that can reflect a global assessment as well as one in such areas of life as family, self, etc. 6 Several studies have pointed out the relationship between life satisfaction and some important factors like depression, hope and self-esteem. Additionally, life satisfaction is considered as a clear sign of successful adaptation with changes in life situations. 7 This is why adaptation in positive psychology has both positive and negative correlations-presence of life satisfaction and absence of mental illnesses. 6-7 In 2003, it was noted that a joyful environment is associated with higher life satisfaction and happiness. Environment in this sense can include country, city, neighborhood, household, and access to joyful tools (like music). 6 The picture of mental and physical health is changing in Iran. 8 On a large scale, policy makers in health management pay considerably more attention to adolescents and youth and especially university students. 9 Developing an effective strategy for physical , mental, and social health of the youth constitutes one of the main policies in health management. The studied population was 224 students from Tehran University of Medical Sciences. We used two separate questionnaires in this study. The first was a researcher designed questionnaire that was tested in a pilot study of 15 students. This questionnaire has two parts. The first part contained personal and demographic data and satisfaction of students from the university. The second questionnaire was the Oxford Happiness Inventory (OHI). The first part contained 28 close ended or questions and for the second part, the international Argyle and Leu questionnaire was used that had 28 items and four choices. There were 114 (50.9%) male students and 110 (49.1%) females. Students were chosen from seven faculties and 25 educational groups. 94.6% lived in urban areas, 59.4% were single, 33.9% were married, 49.1 percent lived with their families …