a sample of 296 wives was randomly selected from a database at the  iranian martyrs and veterans affairs foundation 
there were 139 wives of prisoners of war ; 60 wives of martyrs , whose husbands were killed during the war ; and 97 wives of disabled veterans ( according to imvaf classification , based on the severity of the veterans disability , they were placed in categories ranging from 25% to 70% and above ) . the cultural and economical class of the randomly selected participants varied from one another .
it is generally agreed that subjective wellbeing ( swb ) can be measured through questions of satisfaction directed to people 's feelings about themselves ( 29 ) .
it is based on life domain scale in which there is a domain - level representation of global life satisfaction and 7 other domains whose scores are computed as personal well - being .
each item refers to a specific life domain ( aspect ) , and the scores of all items are averaged to produce a measure of swb .
the pwi scale contains seven items of satisfaction , each one corresponding to a quality of life domain as : standard of living , health , achieving in life , relationships , safety , community - connectedness , and future security .
these seven domains are theoretically embedded , as representing the first level deconstruction of the global question :  how satisfied are you with your life as a whole ?  ( 29 ) .
cronbach 's alpha lies between .70 and .85 in australia and overseas ( international well - being group , 2005 ) . in this study
, we computed the cronbach 's alpha of the persian translation as high as 0/845 .
pwi - a in this study showed a negative correlation with family inventory of life events and changes scale ( 31 ) .
furthermore , pwi - a showed a negative correlation as high as 0/498 with stress - related symptoms checklist  alpha=0/0001 .
prior stressors , strains , and transitions were measured with the family inventory of life events and changes .
this scale has 71 items in 9 sub - scales that assess life events in the general areas of family conflicts , marital relations , births / pregnancies , money , jobs , moves , deaths , and other ; and was developed by mccubbin , patterson & wilson ( 31 ) .
this self - report instrument was designed to assess both the normative and non - normative family life events , transitions , and strains a family unit may have experienced during the past year .
the alpha coefficient for the total scale was reported as .81 , and test - retest reliability was reported as .80.the overall reliability was reported as high as 0/83(32 ) and its reliability for mothers has been reported to be up to 0/87 , and for fathers from 0/70 to 0/83 ( 33 ) . in this study ,
it included 41 stress - related symptoms which were adopted from the 56 ones of casanova - rosado et .
( 34).in this study , stress - related symptom inventory showed a positive correlation with family inventory of life events and changes scale as high as 0/19 ( in 0/001 significancy level ) and negative correlation ( 0/498 ) with pwi .
a ) a complete list of wives of martyrs , prisoners of war , and wives of disabled veterans was gathered from the iran 's veterans foundation in qom ( bonyad - e - shahid va omoore isargaran ) .
a random sample was prepared from the four urban and educational districts of this city .
wives of these people were informed that the iranian veterans foundation is intending to reveal the psychological problems of the families and their consequences .
the researcher of this study ( the corresponding author ) was also serving these families as a social psychologist for several years and was well - known to them .
after providing the primary information regarding the study through telephone , the visit times were defined ; and educated interviewers as well as researchers were sent to the subjects ' houses . then , the interviewers asked the subjects to complete the questioners . for those un educated or low educated subjects , completion of questionnaires
b ) regarding the ethical principal of the research procedures , it should be mentioned that the interviewers presented a written introduction about themselves , and no personal indicator of samples was registered in the questionnaires .
the subjects were familiar with the chief researcher of the study as a clinical physiologist .
c ) no awards were promised for such voluntary participation of the samples and they just participated in the study based on their familiarity with the researcher and feeling of confidence regarding them .
d ) inclusion criteria were the type of the husband 's situation and his residence site .
exclusion criteria were death ( 1 case ) , displacement or movement to another city ( 2 cases ) .
next , each participant was called by a trained graduated psychologist and upon the subject 's approval ; she was paid a visit at her home , where the psychologist executed the measures .
our psychologists presented every participant with an invitation letter describing the aim of the research to inspire their participation .
this study is an ex - post facto research design . to compare the three groups of the participants , we used anova .
furthermore , linear multivariate regression analysis ( stepwise method ) was used to find out which variable could predict personal well - being .
a sample of 296 wives was randomly selected from a database at the  iranian martyrs and veterans affairs foundation 
there were 139 wives of prisoners of war ; 60 wives of martyrs , whose husbands were killed during the war ; and 97 wives of disabled veterans ( according to imvaf classification , based on the severity of the veterans disability , they were placed in categories ranging from 25% to 70% and above ) . the cultural and economical class of the randomly selected participants varied from one another .
it is generally agreed that subjective wellbeing ( swb ) can be measured through questions of satisfaction directed to people 's feelings about themselves ( 29 ) .
it is based on life domain scale in which there is a domain - level representation of global life satisfaction and 7 other domains whose scores are computed as personal well - being .
each item refers to a specific life domain ( aspect ) , and the scores of all items are averaged to produce a measure of swb .
the pwi scale contains seven items of satisfaction , each one corresponding to a quality of life domain as : standard of living , health , achieving in life , relationships , safety , community - connectedness , and future security .
these seven domains are theoretically embedded , as representing the first level deconstruction of the global question :  how satisfied are you with your life as a whole ?  ( 29 ) .
cronbach 's alpha lies between .70 and .85 in australia and overseas ( international well - being group , 2005 ) . in this study
, we computed the cronbach 's alpha of the persian translation as high as 0/845 .
pwi - a in this study showed a negative correlation with family inventory of life events and changes scale ( 31 ) .
furthermore , pwi - a showed a negative correlation as high as 0/498 with stress - related symptoms checklist  alpha=0/0001 .
it is generally agreed that subjective wellbeing ( swb ) can be measured through questions of satisfaction directed to people 's feelings about themselves ( 29 ) .
it is based on life domain scale in which there is a domain - level representation of global life satisfaction and 7 other domains whose scores are computed as personal well - being .
each item refers to a specific life domain ( aspect ) , and the scores of all items are averaged to produce a measure of swb .
the pwi scale contains seven items of satisfaction , each one corresponding to a quality of life domain as : standard of living , health , achieving in life , relationships , safety , community - connectedness , and future security .
these seven domains are theoretically embedded , as representing the first level deconstruction of the global question :  how satisfied are you with your life as a whole ?  ( 29 ) .
cronbach 's alpha lies between .70 and .85 in australia and overseas ( international well - being group , 2005 ) . in this study
, we computed the cronbach 's alpha of the persian translation as high as 0/845 .
pwi - a in this study showed a negative correlation with family inventory of life events and changes scale ( 31 ) .
furthermore , pwi - a showed a negative correlation as high as 0/498 with stress - related symptoms checklist  alpha=0/0001 .
prior stressors , strains , and transitions were measured with the family inventory of life events and changes .
this scale has 71 items in 9 sub - scales that assess life events in the general areas of family conflicts , marital relations , births / pregnancies , money , jobs , moves , deaths , and other ; and was developed by mccubbin , patterson & wilson ( 31 ) .
this self - report instrument was designed to assess both the normative and non - normative family life events , transitions , and strains a family unit may have experienced during the past year .
the alpha coefficient for the total scale was reported as .81 , and test - retest reliability was reported as .80.the overall reliability was reported as high as 0/83(32 ) and its reliability for mothers has been reported to be up to 0/87 , and for fathers from 0/70 to 0/83 ( 33 ) . in this study , the test - retest reliability was 0/722 .
it included 41 stress - related symptoms which were adopted from the 56 ones of casanova - rosado et .
( 34).in this study , stress - related symptom inventory showed a positive correlation with family inventory of life events and changes scale as high as 0/19 ( in 0/001 significancy level ) and negative correlation ( 0/498 ) with pwi .
a ) a complete list of wives of martyrs , prisoners of war , and wives of disabled veterans was gathered from the iran 's veterans foundation in qom ( bonyad - e - shahid va omoore isargaran ) .
a random sample was prepared from the four urban and educational districts of this city .
wives of these people were informed that the iranian veterans foundation is intending to reveal the psychological problems of the families and their consequences .
the researcher of this study ( the corresponding author ) was also serving these families as a social psychologist for several years and was well - known to them .
after providing the primary information regarding the study through telephone , the visit times were defined ; and educated interviewers as well as researchers were sent to the subjects ' houses .
then , the interviewers asked the subjects to complete the questioners . for those un educated or low educated subjects , completion of questionnaires was performed through an oral procedure similar to the wexler test of intelligence .
b ) regarding the ethical principal of the research procedures , it should be mentioned that the interviewers presented a written introduction about themselves , and no personal indicator of samples was registered in the questionnaires .
the subjects were familiar with the chief researcher of the study as a clinical physiologist .
c ) no awards were promised for such voluntary participation of the samples and they just participated in the study based on their familiarity with the researcher and feeling of confidence regarding them .
d ) inclusion criteria were the type of the husband 's situation and his residence site .
exclusion criteria were death ( 1 case ) , displacement or movement to another city ( 2 cases ) .
next , each participant was called by a trained graduated psychologist and upon the subject 's approval ; she was paid a visit at her home , where the psychologist executed the measures .
our psychologists presented every participant with an invitation letter describing the aim of the research to inspire their participation .
furthermore , linear multivariate regression analysis ( stepwise method ) was used to find out which variable could predict personal well - being .
frequency of participant groups as we can seedemonstrated in table 2 , there is no significant difference between the three groups in their overall satisfaction of life .
wives of martyrs ( killed veterans ) , disabled veterans and prisoners of war have shown almost equal overall satisfaction of life . however ,
their personal well - being , family stresses and stress - related symptoms differ significantly .
independent variables includes well - being of wives of disabled veterans , in graph 1 , we seeit can be seen that the wives of disabled veterans experience the lowest level of personal well - being , whereas , both . however , the wives of prisoners of war and martyrs are on the same level , which is higher in comparison to the wives of disabled veterans .
the wives of prisoners of war suffer from higher levels of family stress , while the other two groups of wives experience lower levels of family stress . for stress - related symptoms ,
the wives of martyrs are at the highest level followed by the wives of disabled veterans in the middle , and finally the lowest level belongs to the wives of prisoners of war . by looking at the graph 1 , we can see that the wives of prisoners of war experience a high level of family stress while showing the least amount of stress - related symptoms and feeling the highest personal well - being .
although the wives of killed veterans also show a high level of personal well - being , but they experience a low level of family stress and show the highest level of stress - related symptoms . finally , the wives of disabled veterans experience a low level of family stress , but show a high level of stress - related symptoms and feel the lowest level of personal well - being . we will discuss these findings later . to assess variance predictions , we used linear multivariate regression analysis
in which the total score of family stress is the dependent variable and the nine family sources of stress are the independent variables .
according toas demonstrated in table 3 , in all the participants , family conflicts predicted 94.6% of the total score of the family inventory of life events and changes .
it seems that family conflicts are the main source of stress in the life of all the wives of veterans ' wives .
now , we must see whether all the three groups have a unique main source of stress in their families .
linear multivariate regression analysis ( stepwise method ) to evaluate the predictors of personal well - being among the three groups of participants , a linear multivariate regression analysis ( stepwise method ) was executed in which discriminative events among participants entered the regression equation .
. 
  linear multivariate regression analysis ( stepwise method ) in wives of prisoners of war as we can see , automatic thoughts , and chronic stress symptoms and be among the wives of disabled veterans ' wives predict personal well - being scores .
, we can see demonstrates that the wives of prisoners of war experience the most amount of family stresses because of economic limitations ( r square= 0/962 ) .
other sources of stress had the lowest effects in the family life events and changes had the lowest effects . 
  linear multivariate regression analysis ( stepwise method ) in wives of prisoners of war the main source of stress for the wives of killed veterans ( martyrs ) was legal problems ( problem with law ) . according to table 6 ,
legal problems of one of the family members have predicted 98.6% of variances of the family life events and changes ' score .
different from the other two groups , ffamily conflicts are the main source of family stresses for the wives of disabled veterans . comparing three groups in overall life satisfaction , personal well - being , total family stress score and chronic stress symptoms score ( p values : overall satisfaction : .741 ; personal well - being : .035 ;
total family stress scores : .0001 ; chronic stress symptoms scores : .01 ) 
  linear multivariate regression analysis ( stepwise method ) in wives of killed veterans family conflicts have predicted 98.1% of variances of the total score of family inventory of life events and changes .
. 
  linear multivariate regression analysis ( stepwise method ) in wives of disabled veterans first , we compared personal well - being , overall satisfaction of life , family stresses and stress - related symptoms , in the three groups of participants the results are displayed in table 1 .
whether it is the  death instinct  that drives the nations into wars , or whether there are other complicated reasons for this horrific phenomenon , it seems that wars have become a part of our lives .
no matter how offensive or defensive , wars always bring humans unimaginable heartache and misery .
three decades ago , when iranians were so busy trying to get their lives together after a revolution in their country , they had to enter an eight - year war with saddam 's regime in iraq .
although men are the ones fighting at the frontline , women also experience their share of war - related stresses . some of the war - related sources of stress for women include : providing care for the disabled veterans , looking after children , managing the household , and finally putting up with their husbands ptsd .
studies suggest that wives of injured men experience more distress than mothers and that the impact of a traumatic injury upon a marriage partnership is different from the impact upon a parent - child relationship ( 1619 ) .
findings from many researches suggest that the veterans wives experience more stress , show more stress - related symptoms and have a poorer quality of life ; in another words , they have lower subjective well - being ( 22 , 28 , 3537 ) .
just as whalley hammell ( 25 ) reported , the rehabilitation processes had been focused mainly on the injured person and had rarely included their wives in iran .
wives of disabled veterans only receive a monthly nursing fee and an ordinary insurance without any complementary insurance ( unlike the disabled veterans ) .
furthermore , the wives of prisoners of war rarely receive instruction in rehabilitation skills , whereas wives of killed veterans ( martyrs ) can have psychological counseling services , although they do n't exactly look forward to these services ! in this study , all the three groups showed similar overall satisfaction of life , but different levels of personal well - being , family stresses and stress - related symptoms .
first of all , it seems that they are experiencing a form of  acquired hopelessness  as a result of having to confront constant sources of stress for a long time without ever learning the coping skills in systematic ways , consequently losing their homeostasis .
second , due to iranian - islamic culture , they have overused positive reassessment of their difficult situation , meaning that they have focused on figuring out the  hikmah  for their problems , trying to find positive reasons to justify their sufferings and stresses .
third , they believe that enduring stresses is a way of defending their islamic beliefs and government and so may be good as it makes god happy . however , there are some differences among the wives .
for example , although the wives of disabled veterans show more stress - related symptoms and experience the least amount of personal well - being , according to many studies , in comparison to the wives of prisoners of war , they experience the least amount of family stress . partial social isolation of these families has decreased their general social support .
furthermore , veterans ' secondary health problems have produced family conflicts in the families of disabled veterans .
anger , low sexual function , physical and other psychological problems increase the conflicts in these families . although the wives of killed veterans have their own family conflicts ,
the difference is that they have gradually accepted their conditions without having to experience the hassles of taking care of a veteran with health problems .
therefore , they are usually involved in handling problems caused as a result of the absence of a father in the family .
for instance , as the heads of their families , they might have to deal with legal problems .
finally , there are the wives of prisoners of war whose families seem to somehow function more naturally .
although their husbands have some problems such as ptsd symptoms , their symptoms are milder than those of disabled veterans .
their problems arise from the fact that they have some health problems after all , and also they have relatively higher expectations .
it also seems that they demonstrate displaced aggression by taking their negative reactions to society out on their family members .
therefore , their wives experience more stress and enjoy less personal well - being . at the same time , semi - natural family functioning and homeostasis have helped the wives of prisoners of war to cope with sources of stress better than the wives of disabled veterans and killed veterans .
gathering the needed official data was not easy because of some limitation from the related organizations and the researcher had to obtain different legal grands for accessing such data .
financial problems were another limitation of this study as the researchers did many of the processes of the research by themselves .
 objectivethis study was conducted to compare the personal well - being among the wives of iranian veterans living in the city of qom.methoda sample of 300 was randomly selected from a database containing the addresses of veteran 's families at iran 's veterans foundation in qom ( bonyad - e - shahid va omoore isargaran ) . 
 the veterans ' wives were divided into three groups : wives of martyrs ( killed veterans ) , wives of prisoners of war , and wives of disabled veterans . 
 the persian translation of personal well - being index and stress symptoms checklist ( ssc ) were administered for data collection . 
 four women chose not to respond to personal well - being index . 
 data were then analyzed using linear multivariate regression ( stepwise method ) , analysis of variance , and by computing the correlation between variables.resultsresults showed a negative correlation between well - being and stress symptoms . 
 however , each group demonstrated different levels of stress symptoms . furthermore , multivariate linear regression in the 3 groups showed that overall satisfaction of life and personal well - being ( total score and its domains ) could be predicted by different symptoms.conclusioneach group experienced different challenges and thus different stress symptoms 
 . 
 therefore , although they all need help , each group needs to be helped in a different way . 