Social support enhances the mediating effect of psychological resilience on the relationship between life satisfaction and depressive symptom severity

Abstract

Psychosocial factors, including life satisfaction, resilience, and social support, have been proposed to influence depressive symptom severity in adults because the age of onset of depressive disorders, i.e. adolescence to early adulthood, is associated with various impairments in psychosocial functioning. In this study, a psychosocial model was constructed to verify these relationships to prevent depression. For this study, 370 participants were recruited from the community via poster or online advertisements. They completed several questionnaires to assess depressive symptom severity: the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC), Satisfaction with Life Scale (SwLS), Peace of Mind (PoM) scale, Social Support Questionnaire (SSQ), and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II). A negative association was found between depressive symptom severity and all other variables, including PoM and CD-RISC scores, life satisfaction, and social support. Such factors can be considered protective against increased depressive symptom severity. In addition, indirect effects of PoM and resilience on the negative association between SwLS scores and depressive symptom severity were observed. Moreover, social support was found to mediate the correlation between PoM and resilience, implying that social support mediates the relationship between state of mind and resilience. The psychosocial model suggested that depressive symptom severity is influenced by internal factors (an individual’s state of mind, subjective view of events and their life) and external factors (including social support).