Social capital and related factors in Western Iran students

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Social capital involves a set of norms available in social systems which improves the interaction between people and reduces the costs of interactions and communications. The purpose of this research was to study the social capital of the students of Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences and its related factors, 2017. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The method of this study was the descriptive survey. The statistical sample of this study included all students of Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences among whom 378 students were selected randomly as the study sample. Delaviz questionnaire of social capital was employed for data collection and data analysis was performed using SPSS software, through descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation) and Inferential statistics (U-Mann Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis). RESULTS: The mean of social capital was 70.56 ± 10/88. The minimum and maximum mean was measured for “participation in local community” and “group participation”, respectively. In this study, there were significant associations between social capital and gender, field of study as well as marital status (p < 0/01). CONCLUSIONS: Social capital is known as the most important factor for people dealing with stressful situations, and can facilitate toleration of problems for them. It can also support the health and life satisfaction of students.