Introduction: Anxiety is a psychological disorder, which cognition of its causes is essential. The aim of this study was to examine of emotional regulation difficulties and negative automatic thoughts in the prediction of students' anxiety Islamic Azad University, Bukan Branch.
Methods: The method used is descriptive- correlation. The statistical population of this study includes all of college students Islamic Azad University, Bukan Branch city in the academic year of 2017-2018, from which a sample of 325 students were selected by convenience sampling. In the present study, difficulty of emotion regulation Scale (DERS), negative automatic thoughts and anxiety inventory were employed to gather the required data. Data was analyzed in SPSS 20 software using Pearson Correlation Coefficient, and Stepwise Regression test.
Results: According to the results of Pearson correlation coefficient, there is a positive and significant relationship between emotional regulation difficulties and negative automatic thoughts with students' anxiety (P <0.01). As well as the results indicated that predicted 23% of the variance of Anxiety by negative automatic thoughts and emotional regulation difficulties.
Conclusions: Regarding the results, Anxiety is predictable based on the emotional regulation difficulties and negative automatic thoughts. Therefore, teaching emotional regulation strategies and control of negative automatic thoughts is necessary to increase mental health and reduce students' anxiety.