Investigation of depression severity in university students in the context of attachment styles and cognitive emotion regulation strategies

Depression is a growing concern. This research aimed to examine depression symptom severity within the framework of attachment theory and cognitive emotion regulation. The research sample consists of university students studying in Turkey. The research questionnaire designed to apply the Socio-Demographic Information Form, Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Relationship Scales Survey (BSA) and Cognitive Emotion Regulation Scale (CBT) was delivered to the participants, and the data were collected from online platforms and by hand. 562 undergraduate students participated in the study, and after checking the exclusion criteria, missing and outlier values, the data of 451 participants were analyzed. SPSS 26 statistical package program was used in the analysis of the data. Descriptive statistics, independent samples t test, ANOVA were applied in the analysis of the data, and the Scheffe test among the post-hoc tests was used to examine the significant differences in the ANOVA statistics. Pearson correlation analysis was performed for relational analyses, and after the prerequisites were met, hierarchical regression analysis was performed to determine the predictive effects of attachment styles and cognitive emotion regulation strategies on depression severity. Findings regarding the effects of socio-demographic variables on depression severity, attachment styles and cognitive emotion regulation strategies, Pearson correlation and hierarchical regression analysis findings were evaluated in the discussion section, the results were conveyed and suggestions were made. It was determined that dismissive attachment, preoccupied attachment, catastrophizing, self-blame, positive reevaluation, refocusing on planning and positive refocusing strategies explained 44.3% of the variance in depression severity. Key words: Depression, Attachment Styles, Cognitive Emotion Regulation.