comparison of mental health of smokers and non-smokers university students in islamic azad university of gachsaran-2010

introduction and objective nowadays, one of the vital and essential concepts in the world is the health concept. from the psychology point of view, mental health is including the individual abilities to enjoy of life and find a balance between life activities and effort to achieve of the psychological flexibility. the purpose of this study was the comparison between mental health of smokers and non-smokers university student in islamic azad university of gachsaran-2010. materials and methods this study was a comparative descriptive study. in this study, 360 male students (225 smoker student and 135 non-smokers student) of gachsaran azad university between september and november 2010 with a stratified random sampling were selected and examined. a data collection tool was a general health questionnaire of goldberg. p values less than (0.05) were considered statistically significant. results the results showed that the mean of anxiety, depression, physical symptoms and social perversity of smoking was significantly more than the non-smoking students. this means that non-smokers had better mental health than smokers. conclusions to promote motivation of the students and increase their awareness, holding of seminars and workshops, as well as educate the students to give up smoking, and entering the smokers students in the field of research about the smoking are recommended.