The contribution of emotion regulation in determining individuals’ profiles of positive mental health

Keyes’ model of positive metal health (PMH) received considerable attention in recent years, but few studies associated flourishing, languishing and moderate mental health with emotion regulation (ER), that showed significant correlations with well-being and distress. The aim of this research is to add the evaluation of ER to the assessment of PMH in a group of university students, in order to obtain more accurate profiles in terms of well-being and psychological distress. 345 students were screened with the Mental Health Continuum (MHC), the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Strategies (DERS) and with the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS) and classified according to MHC categories only, or with a cluster procedure based on MHC and DERS scores. Roc analyses were also performed. 86 participants presented severe psychological distress according to DASS and 43 had a diagnosed mental illness. Almost 60% of them were categorized under the MHC moderate mental health, while cluster analyses classified them mostly into the Impaired mental health category. Adding DERS to MHC evaluation improved the accuracy of profiling individuals according to their mental health status. This new classification offers a more straightforward strategy for identifying individuals needing mental health interventions, either focused on well-being dimensions or on ER, according to their clinical profiles.