the Relationship between Hope and Mental Health amongst Iranian Students

:In the recent years, psychologists have looked at hope construct as a psychological strong point, and are of the belief that this construct can help nurture and create mental health. The current study, therefore, initiated to determine the extent of relationship between mental health and hope as well as the prediction of mental health variations by using a descriptive-correlative research method. The participants of the study included 043 subjects, 501 males and 531 females , from Urmia University in Urmia, Iran, selected by stratified random sampling. The instruments utilized in the study were Snyder‟ Hope Scale (HS) and the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-52) , respectively. The data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistical methods such as independent samples t-test, Pearson correlation, and regression. The results indicated a significant difference between the average scores of male and female students across the hope variable, but there was no significant difference within mental health scale. A significant correlation was also found between hope and mental health. The final results revealed that the hope variable could predict and explain 53.4 % of the mental health variations. In other words, hope can predict mental health significantly, it can be concluded, therefore, that with increased attention to such concepts as hope, optimism, happiness, and other human-adapted capacities amongst students, their mental health will improve.

Hope, Mental Health, Iranian Student