Abstract:

University counselling services have an essential role in higher education. The counselling centers generally helps university students to cope with their psychosocial and developmental problems. In the university environment, they try to accomplish specific developmental tasks which are peculiar to this period, such as taking responsibility of himself/herself, making independent decisions, establishing and maintaining intimate relationships with the others, establishing friendships, etc. Therefore, the students as emerging adults may experience several difficulties such as economic problems, distresses related to establishing close relations, preparing themselves for professions, future anxiety, adjustment difficulties, difficulties of making independent decisions, loneliness, hopelessness, depression, etc. All these have the potential to threaten the well-being of university students. This situation might lead to increase in the prevalence of psychopathology among university students. Thus, the severity and number of psychological problems of students applying university counseling centers increase gradually. Therefore, the understanding of the some psychological characteristics of students applying university counseling centers is more important.
The present study was carried out to determine the psychological characteristics such as the body image satisfaction, self-esteem, social anxiety and quality of life of students applying university counseling centers. For this reason, in the research, it was aimed to describe the some psychological qualities of the students by means of answering following research questions. 1. What are the students’ levels of body image satisfaction, self-esteem, social anxiety and quality of life? 2. What are the relationships among body image satisfaction, self-esteem, social anxiety and quality of life of the students. The research was applied to 469 Turkish university students. Data were collected with Pleasure of Body Organs Scale, Coopersmith Self Esteem Scale, Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale, Quality of Life Instrument (WHOQOL-BREF(TR)). The findings indicated that there are significant relationships among body image satisfaction, self-esteem, social anxiety and quality of life of of students applying university counseling centers.

Keywords:

body image satisfaction, self-esteem, social anxiety, quality of life, university.