THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MENTAL HEALTH AND DEFENSE MECHANISMS IN BACHELOR STUDENTS URMIA UNIVERSITY OF MEDICAL SCIENCES

Background & Aims: One of the important dimension of health is mental health. Men in order to confront stresses, have used defense mechanisms for life-long. Defenses play an important role in mental health. Each mental disturbance relates with a given maladaptive defense mechanism. In this study the relation between the mental health and defense mechanisms of the bachelor students of Urmia University of Medical sciences has been assessed. Methods & Materials: In this descriptive study 189 bachelor students of UMSU were chosen by randomized cluster sampling and completed defense mechanisms questionnaire (DSQ40) and mental health questionnaire (GHQ28). The data’s were analyzed by descriptive statistics and Independent t test and Pearson’s coefficient correlation. Results: It was revealed that mental health and its dimensions have a statically significant Relation with immature defense mechanisms, in which people who have a lower level of mental health use much more immature defense mechanisms than the others. It was shown that somatic symptom with a 95% confidence level had a weak and opposite correlation with neurotic defense mechanisms (p <0.01). Conclusion: There are degrees of disturbances in different dimensions of mental health in these students and use of immature defense mechanism has a negative effect on their mental health. Evaluation of students’ mental health and appropriate medical and educational intervention is necessary.