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

This paper explores the associations between mental health, subjective wellbeing, 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.