Love of Life in Turkish Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The aims of the present study were (a) to introduce the Turkish version of the Love of Life Scale (LLS), (b) to develop a short form of the LLS, (c) to assess the psychometric properties and explore the factor structure of this Turkish version of the LLS, (d) to examine gender differences in the LLS, and (e) to provide a data point for the level of love of life during the pandemic in Turkey, as a point of reference for future studies after the end of the pandemic. A cross-sectional convenience sample of 381 college students responded to the Turkish version of the LLS. Cronbach's α was .95 for the long form LLS. Both Cronbach alpha and McDonald Omega values were .92 for the short form of LLS. Principal components analysis extracted one component labeled Love of Life for both forms. The short version of LLS contained four items, with a first principal component accounting for 80.15% of total variance. The long form of LLS correlated very highly with its short form. The sex difference for the long and short forms LLS total scores was not statistically significant. Age differences were found for the long form LLS total scores but not for the short form. The present results demonstrate the applicability of the Turkish version of the LLS to Turkish college students. Keywords: Love of life, Positive mental health, COVID-19, Turkey