Positive mental imagery and mental health amongst university students in Pakistan

Abstract

Mental health problems amongst university students pose a major public health challenge, and this is particularly the case in Pakistan. Alongside broader societal and cultural pressures, cognitive factors likely also play a role in the development of and resilience to mental health problems and may provide a feasible target for interventions. The current study built on previous research in primarily European samples investigating the relationship between one cognitive factor, positive future‐oriented mental imagery, and mental health, extending this to a sample of university students in Pakistan (N = 1838). In a cross‐sectional design, higher vividness of positive future‐oriented mental imagery was associated with lower levels of depressive symptoms and higher levels of positive mental health amongst participants completing questionnaire measures on paper (N = 1430) or online (N = 408). In the sample completing the measures on paper, these relationships remained statistically significant even when controlling for socio‐demographic and mental health‐related variables. The results provide a foundation for further investigating positive mental imagery as a potential mechanism of mental health and intervention target amongst university students in Pakistan.