The Relationship between Mental Health and General Self-Efficacy Beliefs, Coping Strategies and Locus of Control in Male Drug Abusers

Background: various studies have been conducted to determine the causes of drug abuse from a psychological perspective. mental health has also been among the studied factors. the present study aimed to investigate the relationship between mental health and general self-efficacy beliefs, coping strategies and locus of control in male drug abusers. methods: this was a correlational descriptive study involving all male drug abusers (4,493 cases) at self-introducing detoxification centers in kerman, iran, during 2010-11. a total number of 354 patients were selected randomly with cluster sampling. measurement tools were included goldberg’s general health questionnaire (ghq-28), generalized self-efficacy scale (gse-10), coping responses inventory (csi), and internal–external locus of control scale (i-e). the survey data were analyzed by spss using pearson correlation and stepwise regression. findings: there were significant correlations between mental health and self-efficacy beliefs (r = -0.626), problem-oriented coping strategy (r = -0.535), emotion-oriented coping strategy (r = 0.573), external locus of control (r = -0.298), and internal locus of control (r = -0.525) (p < 0.01 for all). the results of the regression analysis showed that 58.7 percent of total variance of mental health can be estimated by general self-efficacy beliefs, coping strategies and locus of control. conclusion: in general, the results showed that increased levels of general self-efficacy, problemoriented coping strategy and internal locus of control will improve mental health. in contrast, decreased general self-efficacy, emotion-oriented coping strategy and external locus of control would lead to decreased mental health.