Background: Mental health refers to the feeling of well-being, self-confidence, self-trust and competition capacity or having the ability to cope with adversity, intergeneration attachment and fulfilling the emotional and potential abilities. Mental health is something beyond the absence of mental disorders. The present study describes a planned program to promote mental health status among university students using self-esteem and health control beliefs from 2004 to 2007 .

Materials and Methods: The quasi experimental study was carried out on 144 students of Gonabad and Birjand Medical Universities. They were randomly divided into case (n=71) and control (n=73) groups. Data were collected through demographic questionnaires, multidimensional health locus of control (HLC) scales, Rosenberg's self-esteem and general health questionnaire-28 (GHQ-28). The educational program was based on using the self-concept, self-confidence, health locus of control and self-esteem as a focus group in which discussion method was used for 11 sessions. The questionnaires were collected and evaluated before, immediately after and 3 months after the intervention.

Results: The results showed significant differences between selected variables in the case group compared to those in the control one, before and after the intervention (p<0.05).The external components of HLC showed a significant decrease, while the internal HLC and self-esteem revealed a significant increase immediately after the intervention (P<0.0001). Besides, the students' mental health significantly increased three months after the intervention (P<0.0001).