University students are constantly faces with multiple stressors from different aspects of their lives and the society. Transition from high school to university brings lots of challenges in youth’s life both in abroad and in Türkiye. Adjusting to university life, building up social networks, fulfilling developmental tasks have raised students’ stress level and contributed to the development of several psychiatric problems. Moreover, Turkish family system causes youths’ stress level raise. Because, instead of autonomy and individualism; close family ties, loyalty, and interdependence are supported in Turkish families (Okman-Fisek, 1982). Parents in Turkish culture think that their responsibility is to meet the all the needs of their sons or daughters. They think that they are helping their children by not giving any responsibility. Although there are some changes in metropolitan cities, especially in the urban regions, most adolescents continue to live with their parents over the age of 18 and this situation is accepted as normal. The most accepted reason for adolescent to leave home may be an university education. Hence, besides academic stress, leaving the protected family environment and facing with real life challenges can be very stressful for Turkish university students. They become vulnerable for the development of several psychiatric symptoms. The prevalence of depression, anxiety and stress were found as 27.1%, 47.1%, and 27% respectively (Bayram and Bilgel, 2008). Learned resourcefulness as a cognitive-behavioral repertoire for the regulation of internal events’ could be viewed as coping resource available for the individuals who faced with stressful situation (Rosenbaum, 1990). Individuals with a rich repertoire of coping skills may benefit more by facing the stressful situation than by avoiding it (Zlotogorski et al., 1995). Another study showed that high resourceful students utilized more problem-focused coping, more positive reappraisal, were more likely to seek social support, and less likely to use escape-avoidance strategies during exam (Akgün, 2004). Learned resourcefulness has been associated with various psychological conditions. Research findings reported that individuals with higher learned resourcefulness are less likely to become depressed (Huang et al., 2005), higher levels of alcohol consumption (Carey et al., 1990), better equipped to express their anger in healthier and less destructive ways (Kuehl, 1999) whereas individuals with lower resourcefulness have higher anxiety and loneliness (Hamana, Ronen and Feigin, 2000) and exhibiting eating disturbances and perceived less control  over their styles (Kennett and Nisbet, 1998). Therefore, the aim of current study is to investigate the role of learned resourcefulness on the psychiatric symptoms of Turkish university students.

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