The relationship between automatic thoughts and mindfulness in university students

The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between automatic thoughts and mindfulness in university students. In line with the information received from Çukurova University Adana Vocational School student affairs, the study group of the research consists of 750 students (412 female, 338 male), who were reached among 5130 students registered in the spring term in the 2020-2021 academic year. The general relational search model, which is one of the quantitative research methods, was used in the study. In the study, "Automatic Thoughts Scale" consisting of 30 items, "Conscious Awareness Scale" consisting of 15 items and a socio-demographic information form prepared by the researcher were used to collect data. In the analysis of the datas, SPSS program has been used. As a result of the analysis, it was determined that the scale scores met the assumption of normal distribution. For the data analysis independent sample T-Test was used to compare two groups to compare quantitative data, single-factor analysis of variance was used to compare more than two groups, and Bonferroni posthoc test was used to determine which group the difference originated from. According to the findings obtained in the research; the total mean score of the participants from the mindfulness scale was calculated as 60.98±13.07, and the total mean score they got from the automatic thoughts scale was calculated as 77.00±32.41. A statistically significant and negative correlation was found between the mindfulness scale scores and the automatic thoughts scale scores (r:-0.49; p<0.01). Keywords: Mindfulness, Automatic thoughts