Coping and depressive symptoms among Iranian students

Five hundred sixty-eight junior and senior high school students in Tehran, Iran, completed measures of depressive symptoms and coping styles with regard to a difficult academic event. On average, the Iranian students reported more depressive symptoms than the U.S. adolescents did. Consistent with the results of studies with U.S. samples, the students who had an active coping style reported fewer depressive symptoms than the students who had a passive coping style did. These findings suggest that the Western construct of personal control functioned somewhat similarly in this non-Western sample.