The Comparison of Psychological Distress, Impulsivity, and Type D Personality between Students with Positive and Negative Attitudes toward Addiction

This study aimed to compare psychological distress, impulsivity, and type D personality between students with positive and negative attitudes toward addiction.

The present study was a causal-comparative design. The statistical population consisted of all undergraduate students of Razi University of Kermanshah in 2017-2018. Among them, 305 students were selected by multi-stage cluster sampling. Among the selected sample, 50 individuals as those with positive attitudes toward addiction, and 50 individuals as those with negative attitudes toward addiction were selected as the final sample. To collect data, the attitude toward addiction and drug scale, the depression, anxiety and stress scale-21, the Barratt impulsiveness scale, and the type D questionnaire were used. The Data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA).

The results showed that there were significant differences on depression, anxiety, total impulsivity and its components (non-planning impulsivity, motor impulsivity, cognitive impulsivity), total type D personality and its components (negative affect and social inhibition) between students with positive and negative attitudes toward addiction. Overall, students who had a positive attitude toward addiction scored higher on these variables, but there was no significant difference between the two groups in stress component.

A positive attitude toward addiction is associated with high levels of anxiety, depression, impulsivity, and type D personality involved in substance use. So, it is suggested that counseling centers and mental health of universities attempt to conduct addiction prevention workshops for students in order to change studentschr('39') attitudes toward addiction and identify students with psychological distress and impulsivity.