Pathways between emotion management ability and mental health among undergraduates with family financial difficulties: parallel mediating roles of self-efficacy and psychological resilience

Purpose Guided by social cognitive, stress-coping and resilience theories, this explanatory sequential mixed-methods study examined whether self-efficacy and psychological resilience operate as parallel mediators in the association between emotion management ability and mental health symptoms among undergraduates with family financial difficulties. Methods In the quantitative phase, 563 undergraduates on the official family financial difficulty register at six comprehensive universities in Guangxi, China, completed the College Students’ Emotion Management Ability Scale, General Self-Efficacy Scale, Resilience Scale for Chinese Adolescents, and 18-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-18). Descriptive statistics, t-tests, ANOVAs, Pearson correlations, and structural equation modeling (SEM) with 5,000 sample bias-corrected bootstrapping were used. In the qualitative phase, 10 participants selected by mental health scores (top and bottom 27%) took part in semi-structured interviews analyzed with inductive thematic analysis. Results Emotion management ability was negatively associated with symptoms (beta = −0.19, p = 0.001) and positively with self-efficacy (beta = 0.43, p < 0.001) and psychological resilience (beta = 0.45, p < 0.001). Both mediators were negatively associated with symptoms (self-efficacy beta = −0.22, p < 0.001; resilience beta = −0.18, p = 0.005). Indirect effects through self-efficacy [beta = −0.09, 95% CI (−0.15, −0.04)] and psychological resilience [beta = −0.08, 95% CI (−0.15, −0.01)] were significant, as was the total effect [beta = −0.36, 95% CI (−0.46, −0.23)]. Qualitative accounts converged on emotion-regulation strategies, economic and psychological pressure, individual differences, and social support, and illustrated how these resources are experienced. Conclusion The cross-sectional data are consistent with a partial parallel-mediation pathway in which self-efficacy and psychological resilience statistically explain part of the association between emotion management ability and fewer mental health symptoms among economically disadvantaged undergraduates. Longitudinal and intervention designs are required to test causal and temporal claims.