Reasons for Living for Young Adults-II (RFL-YA-II): Psychometric Properties Among Iranian Students

Background and Aim: The prevalence and increase of suicidal ideation and attempts among young people and students have been one of the concerns of researchers and mental health care professionals. The present study evaluated the psychometric properties of the Persian version of Reasons for Living for Young Adults-II (RFL-YA-II) in a group of Iranian students. Procedure: This study was conducted on a sample of 250 students of Kurdistan University, Iran in the academic year 2021-2022. The instruments used in this study were RFL-YA-II, Suicide Behaviors Questionnaire-Revised (SBQ-R), Oxford Happiness Questionnaire - Short Form (OHQ-SF), Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS), and Ryff Scale of Psychological Wellbeing (RSPWB). Results: The results of confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated a four-factor structure of the Persian version of RFL-YA-II, while the goodness of fit indices of the one-factor model were not satisfactory. The factor loads of items related to all four factors ranged from 0.41 to 0.91. The findings also provided evidence for the convergent (0.17 to 0.57) and discriminant (-0.20 to -0.56) validity, and Cronbach's alpha coefficients ranged from 0.86 to 0.91. Conclusion: The Persian version of RFL-YA-II is a valid and reliable tool for assessing the reasons for living in Iranian university samples and it can be used in research and treatment settings.