Family Environmental Risk and Perceived Stress in Adolescent Depressive Symptoms: A Network Analysis

This study, grounded in the Process-Person-Context-Time framework, investigates the complex interplay of family environmental factors and their influence on adolescent depressive symptoms, focusing on the role of 'perceived stress'. Using network analysis, we examined data from 735 junior high students (52.1% female adolescents) from three provinces in China (Jiangsu, Shandong, and Henan), with an average age of 13.81 ± 0.92 years, ranging from 12 to 16 years, exploring the relationships between depressive symptoms, perceived stress, and seven family risk factors. The analysis identified three distinct communities. The incorporation of perceived stress led to its integration into a community that included depressive symptoms, parental restrictive monitoring, and family economic strain. Perceived stress emerged as the strongest predictor of depressive symptoms, surpassing parental restrictive monitoring. Furthermore, it overtook depressive symptoms as the node with the strongest bridging connection within its community. These findings underscore the importance of interventions targeting both family conditions and the internal processing of these stressors by adolescents, especially in challenging family environments, to mitigate the risk of depression and promote resilience.