Role of Perceived Stress and Coping Styles on the Eating Disorders of High School Students of Rasht city in 2013

Psychological factors could be influential in the incidence of some problems such as eating disorders during the adolescent period،. The aim of the current study was to investigate the role of perceived stress and coping styles on the eating disorders of high school students of Rasht city in 2013. This correlation study was performed on 370 high school students through multi-stage cluster sampling method in the 2012-2013 academic years. The participants responded to eating disorders'' scale، perceived stress scale، and coping styles questionnaire. The gathered data were analyzed by Spss-18، Pearson correlation coefficient and stepwise regression analysis. The results showed that there were negative significant relationships between positive perceived stresses with eating disorders (anorexia and bulimia)، and positive significant relationship between negative perceived stresses with eating disorders (anorexia and bulimia) (P>0. 01). Also there were negative significant relationships between problem- focused coping with eating disorders (anorexia and bulimia)، and positive significant relationship between emotional- focused coping with eating disorders (anorexia and bulimia) (P>0. 01). Finally، the results of the stepwise regression analysis showed that negative perceive stress، emotional- focused coping، and problem- focused coping could significantly predict 0. 15 percent variance of anorexia and 0. 18 percent variance of bulimia. As the results of current research indicates، psychological factors affect the eating disorders، therefore planning and holding educational workshops based on stress reduction and effective coping styles training in schools could increase the mental health of the students and decrease the psychological problems.