Parent-Adolescent Relationships, Perceived Social Support, and Self-Esteem: Mediating Pathways to Depression Among Chinese Only Children and Non-Only Children

Background and Purpose: Adolescent depression is associated with family dynamics, which are often rooted in dysfunctional family interactions. The present study examined the associations between parent-adolescent relationships and depression among Chinese adolescents, and compared these roles in families with only children and non-only children.

Methods: A survey among 20,959 junior and senior high school students was conducted in Jiangsu Province in China. Structural equation modeling was used to test the mediating pathways between parent-adolescent relationships, perceived social support, self-esteem, and depression, as well as the differences between only children and non-only children.

Results: The results indicated that (1) parent-adolescent relationships were significantly negatively correlated with depression. (2) perceived social support and self-esteem had significant mediating roles, including three pathways: the independent mediating role of perceived social support, the independent mediating role of self-esteem, and the serial mediating pathway of perceived social support and self-esteem. (3) compared to children with siblings, only children reported a higher quality of parent-adolescent relationships, particularly with their mothers, and exhibited significantly lower levels of depression. Moreover, the mediating role of self-esteem was more pronounced in only children than in non-only children.

Conclusions and Implications: A positive parent-adolescent relationship serves as a critical protective factor against depression by enhancing an adolescent's perceived social support and self-esteem. The findings suggest that mental health interventions should be tailored to family structures; specifically, fostering self-esteem may be a particularly effective strategy for only children. These results provide an empirical basis for developing family-based preventive interventions for adolescents.