the releationship between mindfulness and high-risk behaviors mediated by social-virtual networks

Background: high-risk behaviors are potentially harmful and threaten health and well-being of adolescents. objectives: this study aimed to establish a causal relationship between mindfulness and high-risk behaviors mediated by socialvirtual networks. patients and methods: this descriptive correlational study utilized structural equation modeling (path analysis). the statistical population comprised all senior high school male students in zahedan in the academic year 2017 - 2018. based on the krejcie and morgan’s table, 370 students were selected using a cluster random sampling method. data collection tools included brown and ryan mindful attention awareness scale (2003), moghimi and latifi questionnaire on effects of being a member of social networks (2015), and zadeh mohammadi et al. risk-taking scale (2011). data were analyzed using spss v. 22 and amos with the path analysis method. results: model fit indices indicated that the causal model between mindfulness and high-risk behaviors mediated by social-virtual networks fitted sufficiently well. additionally, the results of the path analysis demonstrated a negative relationship between mindfulness and high-risk behaviors and a positive relationship between the individual, social, and cultural-moral effects and high-risk behaviors. thus, mindfulness affected high-risk behaviors via social-virtual networks. conclusions: the results obtained from the current study showed the importance of the mentioned variables in having a tendency toward high-risk behaviors.