Examining the relationship between individuals' smoking and their depression levels and emotional regulation states

The purpose of this research is to examine the mediating role of emotion regulation in the relationship between individuals' smoking and depression levels. At the same time, the participants' smoking, depression and emotion regulation levels were compared according to their gender, age, smoking status, education level, income level, mother's education level, and father's education level. It is thought that the research will contribute to the literature by revealing the mediating role of emotion regulation in the relationship between smoking and depression levels. The data of this research consists of people living in Istanbul. The sample of the research consists of 100 people residing in the Avcılar region of Istanbul. In this research, data was collected via survey. As a data collection tool in the research; Personal information form, emotion regulation scale and depression scale were used. All data of the study were analyzed in the SPSS 23.0 package program. In the study, Mann Whitney U test was used to compare two groups, and Kruskal Wallis H test was used to compare three or more groups. In the study, Spearman test was applied to measure the relationship between the scales. Regression analysis was applied to measure the impact of the scales used in the research on each other. According to the findings obtained as a result of the research; There is a negative relationship between participants' depression and emotion regulation scores. This relationship is not statistically significant. As participants' depression scores increase, their emotion regulation scores decrease. As a result of the regression analysis of smoking, which is the independent variable, and emotion regulation, which is the intermediate variable, there was no change in the depression coefficient, which shows that emotion regulation does not have a mediating role in this relationship. Keywords: Depression, Emotion regulation, Smoking, Smoking.