Social well-being of Iranian retired men of the armed forces and their wives

Background Social well-being is a major component of health, which was somehow neglected until the last few decades. The aim of this study was to determine the state of social well-being of Iranian retired men of the armed forces and their wives in the metropolis of Tehran. Methods This is a cross-sectional study which was conducted in Tehran, capital of Iran, in 2016. Three hundred retired men of the armed forces and their wives were selected by random sampling. We used the Social Well-Being Scale to collect data. We assessed its internal consistency and validity with Cronbach's alpha and exploratory factor analysis before using it. We used SPSS V.24 software to analyse the data via chi(2), Pearson's correlation, t-test and analysis of variance. Results The mean age was 66.39 +/- 6.98 years; 60% were male. The findings revealed that retired men of the armed forces and their wives report a relatively modest degree of well-being. Social well-being of the participants was significantly related to their marital status (p=0.03), education (p=0.03), employment status (p<0.01), housing status (p<0.01), financial status (p<0.01) and health status (p<0.01). Conclusion The social well-being of retired men of the armed forces and their wives was moderate and was not different from each other, and it was related to housing ownership, employment, self-rated socioeconomic condition, education, good health and married status.