Happiness and Associated Demographic Factors among Medical Students of Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, 2010

Background and Happiness is comprised of at least three components: emotional, social and cognitive. The emotional aspect results in positive expressions, the social aspect leads to expanded positive relationships with others and cognitive component creates a thinking which optimistically interprets daily events. This study evaluated the level of happiness and some influencing factors in medical students of Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences. This descriptive cross-sectional study was done in all medical students (n= 356) who were consent to fill the questionnaire. The "Oxford Happiness Questionnaire" with a demographic questionnaire were completed by the students. The scores were analyzed by calculating mean scores of different groups and t-test and ANOVA using SPSS ver.17. From the total of 356 medical students 208 handed the questionnaires. The mean score of happiness of medical students was 41.23. The mean score of happiness was significantly high (42.87) among students of medicine aged 18-22 years while it was lower (38.79) among those aged 22-31 years (P= 0.027). The mean score of happiness for medical students with physical disease was (35.06) which was lower than that of the healthy students (41.9) (P= 0.039). Findings from the study of five inventory factors showed different levels of self-esteem among male and female students of medicine (P= 0.005). The findings showed no relationship between sex, marital status, residential status and happiness among medical students but age and physical health influenced their level of happiness.