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Multidimensional social capital and latent anxiety severity profiles among Chinese medical graduate students: A
Wen Zhu1, Xin Zheng2,3, Ziwei Wang2
1Graduate Student Affairs Office, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui, China.
Abstract:
Mental health issues, such as anxiety, are highly prevalent among medical graduate students. However, the potential relationship between social capital and anxiety symptoms in medical graduate students has not yet been investigated. Therefore, data were collected in 2024 from a multicenter sample of 2,587 medical graduate students obtained through multistage stratified sampling across northern, central, and southern Anhui Province. Anxiety symptoms were assessed using the 20-item Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS-20). Social capital was evaluated across six dimensions: social participation, social support, social connection, trust, sense of belonging, and reciprocity. Latent profile analysis (LPA) was used to identify latent anxiety severity profiles. Multinomial logistic regression was used to examine associations between social capital dimensions and anxiety severity-profile membership. The prevalence of anxiety symptoms among participants was 30.5%. Three latent anxiety severity profiles were identified: low (50.6%), moderate (18.6%), and high (30.8%). Lower levels of social support, social connection, and trust were associated with greater odds of membership in the moderate- and high-anxiety severity profiles. A higher sense of belonging was associated with lower odds of membership in the high-anxiety profile, whereas higher social participation was associated with greater odds of membership in the high-anxiety profile. Compared with the moderate-anxiety profile, membership in the high-anxiety profile was also associated with higher social participation and lower trust. Cognitive social capital, particularly trust and supportive connections, was consistently associated with lower anxiety severity, whereas structural participation showed a context-dependent association. These findings suggest that the quality and context of social relationships may warrant as much attention as the quantity of participation.