The role of depression, anxiety and stress in predicting positive and negative attitudes toward delinquency in male students

This research investigates the role of depression, anxiety, and stress in predicting students' positive and negative attitudes toward delinquency. In this descriptive-correlational research, the population included all the students aging 15-18 years old in Hamedan, Iran. From the population, 100 students were selected through cluster sampling and to collect the data, they were asked to fill in attitude toward delinquency and depression and anxiety and stress scales (DASS-21). The data were analyzed by Pearson’s correlation coefficient and linear multiple regression. The results indicated that the whole point of mental derangement had positive relationship with positive attitude toward delinquency but had no relationship with negative attitude toward delinquency. Also, from the subset of mental derangement, anxiety had a relationship with positive and negative attitude toward delinquency. But depression had a relationship only with positive attitude toward delinquency. The results of the regression analysis also indicated that anxiety explained 28 percent of negative attitude toward delinquency variance, so according to what we mentioned before, parents, mental health specialists and counselors can identify students at risk and manage their depression and anxiety and prevent them from delinquency.