Examination of humor styles and mental health status of health services students in vocational schools

Özet

Objectives: The aim of the study is to determine the humor styles and general mental health of health services students in a vocational school in Turkey.Methods: This descriptive study was conducted in Turkey in 2013. A total of 354 of health services students from vocational schools agreed to participate in the study. Data were collected from students using a descriptive form, a humorstyles questionnaire and a General Health Questionnaire (GHQ 12). Data were analyzed using SPSS 17.0. Descriptiveand Pearson tests were used to analyze the study data.Results: Students’ mean ages was 21.01±2.26, most participants were women (64.5%), of a moderate socio-economicstatus (61.9%) and non-smokers (63.8%). The students mean scores for the humor sub-scales are as follows: Affiliative humor 39.63±8.18, self-enhancing humor 33.64±9,44, aggressive humor 23.29±7.67 and self-defecting humor26.51±7.87. Most of the students’ GHQ scores suggested that participants were at risk of having a mental health disorder (20.6%), while 27.1%were found to be at high risk of having a mental health disorder . A low negative significantcorrelation between the students self-enhancing humor and general health risk was found.Conclusion: The study found that students have positive humor styles. Nearly half of the student partisans were foundto be at a low risk regarding the development of psychiatric disorders.