Academic satisfaction and depressive symptoms in Chinese adolescents: the multiple mediating roles of interpersonal relationships and subjective well-being

ABSTRACTPrevious studies have primarily investigated the individual characteristics or social environment as separate mediators in the link between academic satisfaction and depressive symptoms. However, these earlier studies overlooked the combined effects of these factors, thus resulting in limited ecological validity. Therefore, in this study, we investigated the multiple mediating of interpersonal relationships and subjective well-being (SWB) on the relationship between academic satisfaction and depressive symptoms based on the cumulative risk model and ecosystem theory. We analysed cross-sectional data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) of 2020 and focused on a sample of 2413 participants aged between 11 and 18 years (mean ± standard deviation; 14.09 ± 2.22 years-of-age). After controlling for gender and age variables, we conducted moderation analyses using the macro-PROCESS programme models 6 in SPSS software. Analysis showed that interpersonal relationships and SWB concurrently and serially mediated the association between academic satisfaction and depressive symptoms. The multiple mediating effects accounted for 53% of the total product. In conclusion, this study contributes to a better understanding of the mechanisms through which academic satisfaction leads to depressive symptoms and aids in preventing and intervening in depressive symptoms in adolescents.KEYWORDS: Academic satisfactioninterpersonal relationshipsSWBdepressionSchoolchildren AcknowledgementsWe would like to thank the Institute of Social Science Survey (ISSS) of Peking University for their approval to use the 2020 CFPS data.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Ethics approval and consent to participateCFPS was approved by Peking University’s Biomedical Ethics Review Committee and the ethical approval number was IRB00001052–14010. The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki. The ethical consent of both the institution and the participants has been obtained prior to data collection.Additional informationFundingThe research work was supported by the Scientific Research Foundation of the Educational Commission of Jiangxi Province [No. GJJ210501].Notes on contributorsRuigang WeiRuigang Wei is a Master's candidate in the School of Software and Internet of Things Engineering at Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics. His research primarily focuses on the analysis of psychological health data.Ling ZhangLing Zhang is a professor at the School of Software and Internet of Things Engineering at Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics. Her research expertise lies in the analysis of psychological health data.