Nowadays, the fundamental role of having a purpose for life in physical and mental health has been confirmed. According to victor frankl, presence of a purpose in life gives life a meaning and increases resilience against pains and traumas. The importance of the purpose in life construct reveals the need for a reliable and valid tool to measure it. Crumbaugh and Maholick's purpose in life questionnaire is the first and one of the most applied tools for the assessment of life's purposefulness. The aim of this research is to determine the factor structure of purpose in life questionnaire. The questionnaire was administered on 206 students who were selected through random stratified sampling at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. Exploratory factor analysis showed that there are two factors "comprehension" and "purpose" and this finding were confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis. Altogether results of this research showed factor validity of the purpose in life questionnaire with a two factor pattern

Background & Aims: Based on the importance of cancer in all aspects of patient life, this study tries tocompare the life quality between cancerous and healthy individuals.Materials & Methods: Descriptive and causal-comparative analysis has been used as research method. The sample of this study was 80 cancerous patients, and 80 healthy subjects who were matched byconvenience sampling. Purpose of life test (Crumbaugh & Maholick) and Quality of life questionnaires (WHO) were used for gathering data, and multivariate analysis of variance or MANOVA were used foranalyzing the data.Result: The results showed that there is a significant difference between cancerous patients and healthypeople based on purpose of life. There is a significant difference between cancerous patients and healthypeople concerning all aspects of quality of life (p>.001).Conclusion: According to the results, there are significant differences among cancerous and healthypeople concerning their quality of life.

This research was carried out to compare the amount of worry, hope and meaning of life in mothers of deaf children, children with autism, and children with learning disability. Descriptive method was used and the sample consists of 169 mothers who were selected with the use of convenient sampling method from among all of the mothers of autistic, deaf and learning disabled children aged 6 to 12 in Isfahan in 2011. The Penn state Worry Questionnaire (2006), the Adult Dispositional Hope scale (Schneider, 1991) and the Purpose In Life questionnaire (Crumbaugh & Maholick, 1969) were used to assess the variables. The findings show that there is a significant difference in the amount of hope and meaning of life among the three groups (P<0.01). With an increase in meaning of life in the mothers of deaf children, children with autism, and children with learning disability hope increases and worry decreases and vice versa.

This study was conducted to normalize the Crumbaugh and Maholick's questionnaire of Purpose-In-Life (PIL) for an Iranian sample. 250 students of Isfahan University (125 males and 125 females) were selected by stratified sampling method and completed the PLI. Reliability was measured by Cronbach's alpha (reliability coefficient = 0.92). There were positive and significant correlations between PIL scores and scores of the Life Satisfaction and Vitality scales. In terms of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule expanded from (PANS-X) it was demonstrated that all subscales of the positive affect (past, present, future & total) had positive correlation with the PIL scores and all subscales of the negative affect (past, present, future & total), had negative correlation with the PIL scores.However, there was no significant correlation between the PIL scores and those subscales of the positive- negative affect (past, present, future & total). The factor analysis indicated that theorical structure of the questionnaire included one factor. The raw scores; 121 and 71 were determined as 90% and 10% the cut off points, respectively.

The dramatic increase in the world population of the elderly is a phenomenon that has been going on since the 20th century, and it is necessary to improve their mental and physical condition. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the effectiveness of resiliency training on social adjustment and life purposefulness among male elderly living in nursing homes in Isfahan. It was a quasi-experimental research with pretest-posttest design and control group. Participants included 30 elderly men aging between 65 and 96 who were selected by convenience sampling method according to inclusion criteria. Then, they were randomly assigned into two experimental and control groups (n=15). The experimental group received resiliency training for 8 sessions of 90 minutes. The control group received no intervention. Participants responded to Bell's social adjustment questionnaire and Crumbaugh and Maholick purposefulness questionnaires. The data were analyzed using SPSS software version 23. The results showed that group resiliency training significantly increased social adjustment and purposefulness in the experimental group (P<0. 001). Therefore, it is suggested to use resiliency training to increase the level of social adjustment and purposefulness in the elderly living in the nursing homes.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the mediating role of positive and negative affect in the relationship between meaning in life and mental health. The sample consisted of 337 students (153 males and 184 females) from University of Tehran at three levels: BA, MA and PHD. Participants are chosen by available sampling. The students answered the Crumbaugh Maholick (1964) Meaning of Life Questionnaire, Veit and Ware (1983) Mental Health Inventory and Watson et al (1988) Positive and Negative Affect Schedule. For analyzing data, we used some indexes such as Frequency, Percent, Standard deviation, Pearson correlation test and for proving the mediating role, we used Pathway analysis. The results showed a significant positive and negative relationship between meaning in life and psychological well-being as well as psychological distress. The Pathway analysis showed that positive and negative affect has mediating role in the relationship between meaning in life and mental health. According to the result, it can be concluded that, attention to meaning in life and improve it in students life lead to increasing positive affect and as a result can influence mental health and decrease expression of negative affect and psychological distress level.

Background: Infertile women not only face physical challenges but also experience a range of psychological problems throughout the diagnosis, treatment, and course of their disease. Objectives: This study aimed to examine the effects of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) on distress tolerance, flourishing, and purpose in life of infertile women. Methods: An interventional design with a pre-test and post-test with a control group was utilized in this research. The population consisted of infertile women undergoing treatment at infertility clinics in Isfahan city from February 20, 2023, to July 30, 2023. A total of 36 infertile women were randomly selected by convenience sampling based on inclusion and exclusion criteria and assigned into two equal groups—control and interventional—using simple random sampling (n = 18). The instruments used in this study included the Distress Tolerance Questionnaire by Simmons and Gaher (2005), the Flourishing Questionnaire by Soleimani et al. (2015), and the Purpose in Life Questionnaire by Crumbaugh and Maholick (1964). The interventional group received 8 sessions of ACT, while no intervention was implemented for the control group. At the end of the last treatment session, the participants took a post-test, and the data were analyzed using SPSS software version 23 at two levels of descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: The demographic findings of the sample group indicated that the average age in the interventional group was 29.94 years, and in the control group, it was 30.50 years. Results showed that the mean scores of distress tolerance, flourishing, and purpose in life in the interventional group improved in the post-test phase compared to the control group (P < 0.05). Based on the results of multivariate covariance analysis, there is a significant difference between the groups in terms of distress tolerance, flourishing, and purpose in life (P < 0.05). Conclusions: Acceptance and commitment therapy appears to be helpful in improving psychological problems associated with infertility in infertile women. Therefore, counselors and psychologists can use this method to support infertile women.

Since Frankl (1985) has introduced the role of meaning in life in mental health, some psychologists tried to operationalize this concept and study in this field (Crumbaugh and Maholic, 1964; Batista & Almond, 1973; Steger et al., 2006). By development of new instrument in the domain of life's meaning by Schnell (2009), the wider investigation of mental health and meaning in life has been provided. The present study aims at determining the relationship between four sources of life including life meaningfulness, the crisis of life's significance, spirituality, and religiosity and indices of mental health. Therefore, a sample comprising 126 participants (53= female; 73= male) among the students of University of Tehran carried out the questionnaire for investigating the sources of life's meaning (SoMe) and a brief form for the scale of depression, anxiety, and stress (DASS-21). The results were analyzed by Pearson Correlation. Among the variables of life's meaning, the crisis of life's meaning showed the highest positive correlation with depression (r= 0.62, p˂0.01) and stress (r=0.39, p˂0.01). Also, the life meaningfulness showed the highest negative relationship with depression (r=-0.52, p˂0.01) and stress (r=-0.34, p˂0.01). In conclusion, considering the meaning of life as an important associate of mental health seems essential in order to decrease the depression and stress, and improving the general health of society.

Given the diversity of anxiety, especially anxiety of death in the aging period and the growing elderly population, studying factors related to mental health in this period seems necessary. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between age and finding meaning in life and death anxiety in elderly men and women. This research was done in applied format in aim and correlative in implementation. The study population included all retired pensioners in association of education from 2005 to 2015 equaling to 26, 000.The sample size according to population based on Chocran's formula was determined to be 380 people under which 190 women and 190 men were selected by convenience sampling. To measure the variables of aim at life questionnaires of Krambaf and Maholick (1969) and Templer Death Anxiety (1970) were used. To do data analysis, descriptive statistics including frequency, mean, standard deviation and the indexes of inferential statistics including Pearson correlation and regression analysis were used. The results of the research findings showed that finding meaning in life, aging and death anxiety in two groups of elderly men and women had a negative significant relationship and finding meaning at life and age can predict death anxiety in elderly men and women. Finally, the results of simultaneous regression showed that based on meaning finding in life and age, 27% of death anxiety in men and 29% of death anxiety in women can be predicted. Therefore, increasing meaning finding in life and age reduces death anxiety.