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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Health Psychology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1411175
This article is part of the Research Topic Experiences of Mental Health Promotion and Suicide Prevention View all 8 articles

The Mediating Role of Psychological Resilience in the Relationship Between Physical Exercise and Sense of Security Among Left-Behind Junior High School Students: Multi-group Comparative Analysis of Only Children and Children with Siblings

Provisionally accepted
XIA Qifei XIA Qifei 1Qi LIU Qi LIU 2Guoyou QIN Guoyou QIN 3*
  • 1 Xi'an Physical Education University, Xi'an, China
  • 2 Other, Tianshui, China
  • 3 Hanjiang Normal University, Shiyan, Hubei Province, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background: This study aims to explore the mediating role of psychological resilience in the relationship between physical exercise and the sense of security among junior high school students, with a particular focus on variations based on only-child status. Methods: A survey was conducted among 649 left-behind junior high school students in Gansu Province, China, utilizing the Physical Activity Rating Scale-3 (PARS-3), Security Questionnaire (SQ), and Resilience Scale for Chinese Adolescents (RSCA). Results: Among the participants, the mean scores for physical exercise, psychological resilience, and sense of security were 40.78±29.49, 51.14±10.08, and 55.75±14.35, respectively. A significant positive correlation was observed between physical exercise and sense of security (r = 0.210, P < 0.01), physical exercise and psychological resilience (r = 0.164, P < 0.01), and psychological resilience and sense of security (r = 0.443, P < 0.01).Mediation analysis revealed that psychological resilience partially mediates the effect of physical exercise on the sense of security, accounting for 33.9% of the total effect. Multi-group analysis indicated significant differences in this mediating effect between only children and children with siblings, with a stronger predictive role of psychological resilience for the sense of security among non-only children. Conclusion: Participation in physical exercise can promote the improvement of sense of security through the individual power factor of improving the psychological resilience of left-behind junior high school students, and this improvement effect is more significant for non-only children.

    Keywords: physical exercise, Sense of security, psychological resilience, Left-behind junior high school students, Only children, children with siblings

    Received: 02 Apr 2024; Accepted: 11 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Qifei, LIU and QIN. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Guoyou QIN, Hanjiang Normal University, Shiyan, 442000, Hubei Province, China

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