Mental Health, Coping Styles, and Risk-Taking Behaviors in Young Adults

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships among mental health, coping styles, and risk-taking behaviors; as well as the roles of mental health and coping styles in the prediction of risk-taking behaviors, based on the influence of gender in a sample of Iranian young adults. The sample consisted of 92 males and 208 females who were randomly selected from the city of Eghlid, Fars Province, Iran. A demographic questionnaire, the Domain-Specific Risk Taking Scale (DOSPERT), the General Health Questionnaire-28 (GHQ-28), and the Ways of Coping Questionnaire (WOCQ) were used in this study. The results data indicated that mental health (and its subscales) had significant relationships to the DOSPERT (and its subscales) in this sample. Also, coping styles and its subscales had significant relationships to the DOSPERT and its subscales in this sample. Coping styles explained 11% of the total risk-taking behavior variability in this sample. Men had significantly higher scores than women in the confrontive coping style and risk-taking behavior constructs.