The Relationship Between Parent-Adolescent Communication and Depressive Symptoms: The Roles of School Life Experience, Learning Difficulties and Confidence in the Future

Abstract

Purpose

Adolescent depression has become a public health issue in China. Family environment and school life play important roles in shaping adolescent mental health. Our study aimed to examine the effect of parent-adolescent communication, school-life experiences, learning difficulties, and confidence in the future on depressive symptoms. We also examined the mediating effects of school-life experiences, learning difficulties, and confidence in the future on the relationship between parent-adolescent communication and depressive symptoms.

Methods

Data on depressive symptoms, parent-adolescent communication, and mediating variables were obtained from the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS), including baseline data (2013–2014) and follow-up data (2014–2015). Mixed-effect models were used to evaluate the effects of parent-adolescent communication, school-life experiences, learning difficulties, and confidence in the future on depressive symptoms, and path analyses were performed to determine the mediating roles of school-life experiences, learning difficulties, and confidence in the future on the relationship between parent-adolescent communication and adolescent depressive symptoms.

Results

More father-adolescent communication, better school-life experiences, and higher confidence in the future were protective factors for depressive symptoms among all boys and girls, and learning difficulties were a risk factor for depressive symptoms among all boys and girls. School-life experiences, learning difficulties, and confidence in the future had statistically significant mediating effects on the relationship between parent-adolescent communication and depressive symptoms.

Conclusion

More father-adolescent communication, higher confidence in the future, better school-life experiences, and fewer academic difficulties were associated with lower levels of depressive symptoms. Both mother-adolescent communication and father-adolescent communication affected depressive symptoms through their effects on school-life experience, learning difficulties, and confidence in the future. This finding highlighted the importance of parent-adolescent communication and its impact on depression.

Keywords:

• depression
• communication
• adolescent
• CEPS

Ethics Approval and Consent to Participate

Ethical approval for this study was granted by Institutional Review Board (IRB) of Renmin University of China and IRB of Dalian Medical University (Ethics Approval No. [2021] 002). Participation in the study was voluntary, and informed consent from guardians and verbal assent from children were received. This study complied with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Acknowledgments

We thank all participants in the survey and CEPS research team for collecting data and managing the CEPS database. The CEPS data can be requested at http://ceps.ruc.edu.cn/.

Disclosure

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.