Page No.282-290
Lenka Tenklova and Alena Slezackova
Czech Republic
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The objective of this study was to explore the relationship between forgiveness
and mental health and to examine the potential differences between two types of
forgiveness: self-forgiveness and interpersonal forgiveness. Alevel of mental health was
operationalized as a syndrome of an individual’s well-being symptoms, including positive
mental health, trait depression, trait anxiety and the perceived quality of interpersonal
relationships. The research sample consisted of 331 respondents, aged 16 to 69 years.
The tools used included the Heartland Forgiveness Scale, Mental Health Continuum
Scale – Short Form, State-TraitAnxiety Inventory, State-Trait Depression Inventory and
Positive Relations with Others Scale from the Psychological Well-Being Scale. Basic
demographic data including subjective assessment of the general state of health were
administered. The results have shown a statistically significant correlation between
forgiveness and all the investigated variables. Self-forgiveness has been found to be
in a tighter correlation with the investigated variables than interpersonal forgiveness.
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