Risk and protective factors of students\' mental health: Construction and evaluation of psychometric properties

Introduction: The aim of this study was to develop a tool which measures protective and risky factors in students.Method: The current research is a distributive survey. The population of the study was comprised of the students from most the universities of the country from 2010 until 2013. In order to standardize the study’s tool 13 tools were used, some of which were examined in this study such as: Life Satisfaction Scale (LSS); Life Orientation Test (LOT); General Self Efficacy (GSE); oblique to religious behavior; Beck Hopelessness Scale; Ahwaz Perfectionism Scale (APS) and Perceived Social Support Scale. Two methods of the Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis were also used in this study.Results: This tool has 42 items and 6 subscales included family atmosphere, perfectionism, religious orientation, self-efficacy, perceived social support, suicide tendencies. Validity and internal homogeneity coefficient for subscales was between 0/59 (perfectionism) and 0/86 (suicide tendencies). Validity coefficients of tool’s subscales which produced were accordance with the theoretical.Conclusion: The Risk and protective factors scale is a suitable tool in order to screening problem related to effective factors in students' mental health.