Mental health, subjective well-being, and religiosity: Significant associations in Kuwait and USA

This paper explores the associations between mental health, subjective well-being, and religiosity among Kuwaiti and American college students. Our method involved recruiting two convenience samples of 154 Kuwaiti and 154 American undergraduates (28 men, 125 women in both samples), with a mean age of 20.8 yr. (SD = 2.4), and 21.8 (SD = 5.0), respectively. They completed the Arabic Scale of Mental Health (ASMH), the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, the Arabic Scale of Optimism and Pessimism, the Hopelessness Scale, and self-rating scales assessing physical health, mental health, and religiosity. The scales were administered in Arabic to the Kuwaiti students and in English to the American students. Kuwaiti students obtained a significantly higher mean score on religiosity than did their American counterparts, whereas American students had higher mean scores on the ASMH, and the self-rating scales of both mental health and physical health. Significant correlations were found between the ASMH, self-esteem, optimism and religiosity (positive), whereas the correlations between these scales and pessimism and hopelessness were negative. Two factors were retained in both countries: "Mental health versus hopelessness" and "Self-ratings of religiosity and health". Predictors of ASMH were optimism, self-esteem and the self-rating of mental health in both countries and, in addition, hopelessness (negative) and religiosity in the American sample.