Coping Styles Mediate Perfectionism Associations with Depression Among Undergraduate Students

ABSTRACT

To better understand depression among adolescent university students, this study was designed to examine coping style as a potential mediator between perfectionism and depression. Participants comprised 510 undergraduate students from Malaysia. Structural Equation Modelling demonstrated that personal standards perfectionism and task-focused coping style were negatively associated with depression, while emotion-focused coping style, avoidant coping style, and evaluative concerns perfectionism were positively associated with depression. Multiple mediator modelling provided evidence that coping styles partially mediated the relationship between perfectionism and depression. These findings advance current knowledge by suggesting how perfectionism may contribute to depression and may inform the development of more effective prevention and intervention programs for depression.

KEYWORDS:

• Coping styles
• depression
• perfectionism
• students

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author notes

Abbas Abdollahi, is a post-doctoral fellow in the Alzahra University. His principal research interests are in depression, suicidal ideation, coping skills, and hardiness. Simin Hosseinian, is a full professor of psychology at the Alzahra University. Her principal research interests are in depression, couple therapy, and cognitive behaviour therapy. Gordon J. G. Asmundson, is a full professor of psychology at the University of Regina and an adjunct professor of psychiatry at the University of Saskatchewan. He received his doctorate in psychology from the University of Manitoba in 1991 and in 2005–2006 trained as a Beck Scholar at the Beck Institute for Cognitive Therapy and Research in Philadelphia. His principal research interests are in depression, anxiety disorders, and cognitive behavior therapy.

Research involving human participants and/or animals: All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Islamic Azad University where the study was conducted. No animal studies were carried out by the authors for this article. Informed consent was obtained from all individuals participating in this study.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.