The effect of social support and coping strategies on depression in high school students

This study examined the effects of social support and coping strategies on depression in high school students. The study was conducted on 434 high school students, 238 male and 196 female, studying in Batman city center during the Spring semester of the 2023-2024 academic year. The tools applied to the students included the Depression, Anxiety, Stress Scale (DASS-21), Social Support Scale, and Coping Strategies Scale. SPSS (24) program was used for data analysis of the study. In the data analysis process, descriptive statistics (minimum, maximum, mean, standard deviation, kurtosis, skewness) were used along with correlation and linear regression analyses. The findings obtained allow the examination of the relationships between social support and coping strategies and depression. According to the analysis results, a negative relationship was found between depression and active coping (p<.05). This shows that students' depression levels decreased as they used active coping strategies. On the other hand, a positive and significant relationship was found between depression and avoidant coping and negative coping strategies (p<.05). This result shows that students adopt avoidant and negative coping behaviors more as their depression levels increase. A negative and significant relationship was found between social support and depression (p<.05), meaning that as students' perceptions of social support increase, their depression levels tend to decrease. In addition, a positive relationship was found between social support and active coping (p<.05). This result reveals that social support encourages students to use active coping strategies. However, no significant relationship was found between social support and avoidant coping and negative coping (p>.05). This suggests that the perception of social support does not affect coping strategies or that these strategies may develop independently of social support. In addition, in the regression analysis, social support negatively and significantly predicted depression and explained 3% of its variance. On the other hand, avoidant coping and negative coping strategies were found to positively and significantly predict depression. These findings provide important insights into the mental health of high school students, helping us better understand the effects of social support and coping strategies on depression.