Background & Objectives: Mental Health is a phenomenon which has been considered by psychologists, medical doctors and religious scholars and it is a combination of physical, social and cognitive factors. Due to the effectiveness of teaching coping skills in increasing mental health, this study was done to achieve the effect of teaching coping skills in providing mental health in students of Ardabil University of Medical Sciences.       

Methods: Due to the nature and aims of the study, the study method was experimental research method. The samples of the present study comprised all male and female students (n=112) at Ardabil University of medical Sciences in 2006-2007 and gained 23 or more in GHQ-28 questionnaire (which evaluates four subscales of anxiety, depression, physical symptoms, and disorder of social functioning). At the next stage the samples (i.e. 80 female and male students) were selected randomly and divided in to two groups. Then, coping skills were taught to the experimental group for 4 weeks (two sessions in a week) and no variable was exposed to the control group during this period. At the end, the data from 62 (Dropt=18 case) individuals were analyzed by independent t test.   

Results: the results showed that teaching coping skills affects on decreasing mental disorders symptoms especially somatization of symptoms and anxiety of students suspected to the mental disorder (R< 0.001). But the teaching coping skills do not affect on decreasing depression and disorder of social functioning of students.

Conclusion: This study showed that teaching coping skills is a good method in decreasing mental disorders symptoms among the students suspected to the mental disorder. Therefore it is suggested that in order to prevent and decrease mental disorders symptoms, the coping skills should be taught to students.