Introduction: This study investigates the relationship between anxiety and the depression by the mediation of referential thinking and perfectionism.
Materials and Methods: In this study, 240 female students in secondary high schools were selected through multi-stage sampling procedure. Participants completed the Beck Depression Inventory (1996) Anxiety scale Spitzer and colleagues (2006) and the referential thinking scale, Erring and colleagues (2010) multidimensional perfectionism scale Felt and Hewitt (1991). The collected data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.
Results:The results showed that there is no significant direct relationship between anxiety and depression, instead, their indirect relationship with the mediation of referential thinking and dimensions of perfectionism at 0.01 was significant. Referential thinking also showed a significant effect on depression at 0.01. Among dimensions of perfectionism, social-oriented perfectionism and other-oriented perfectionism positively and at a significant level of  0.01 and self-oriented perfectionism negatively at a significant level of 0.01 affect depression.
Conclusion: The results showed that other-oriented perfectionism and social-oriented perfectionism and referential thinking mediate the relationship between anxiety and the depression. In total, according to data, we can conclude that by controlling the referential thinking and modifying unhealthy dimensions of perfectionism into healthy and efficient ones, it can be prevented from converting depressive disorder into generalized anxiety disorder.