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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Mental Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1501513
This article is part of the Research Topic Public Health Strategies to Improve Mental Health in the Education Sector: Perspectives and Applications View all 5 articles

The relationship between social support and psychological crisis vulnerability among family impoverished undergraduates: The intermediary role of psychological resilience

Provisionally accepted
Weimin Yuan Weimin Yuan *Jinhui Ning Jinhui Ning Mengke Huo Mengke Huo Yiwei Feng Yiwei Feng
  • Hebei Agricultural University, Baoding, Hebei, China

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

    Background: Family impoverished undergraduates are more likely to be vulnerable to psychological crises. Therefore, this study aimed to elucidate the intrinsic relationship between social support, psychological resilience, and psychological crisis vulnerability among family impoverished undergraduates and to provide valuable practical evidence and policy support for effectively improving the mental health of family impoverished undergraduates.This study applied quantitative methods to explore the impact of social support on psychological crisis vulnerability among family impoverished undergraduates while also examining the mediating effect of psychological resilience in this process. First, we used the Psychological Crisis Vulnerability Measurement Questionnaire to assess the psychological crisis vulnerability among family impoverished undergraduates and compared it under different demographic characteristics. Second, we expanded the independent variables that affect psychological crisis vulnerability among family impoverished undergraduates and conducted multiple linear regression analyses. Finally, we employed a structural equation modeling approach to analyze the underlying mechanisms between social support and psychological crisis vulnerability and to test the conspicuousness of the mediating role of psychological resilience in the process by which social support affects psychological crisis vulnerability.Results: Analysis of 1,549 valid questionnaires revealed that the overall level of psychological crisis vulnerability among family impoverished undergraduates was moderate. Among the surveyed family impoverished undergraduates, 37.62% reported difficulty in maintaining psychological balance when facing crises, and 4.73% showed a very vulnerable response to crises. Factors significantly associated with the psychological crisis vulnerability of family impoverished undergraduates included being a student from a financially disadvantaged background, coming from a single-parent family, and having experienced being a left-behind child. Additionally, the participants had a social support score of 60.29  11.31, indicating that individual social support was significantly correlated with family support, friend support, and support from significant others.

    Keywords: family impoverished undergraduates, Mental Health, social support, Psychological Crisis Vulnerability, psychological resilience, Intermediary role

    Received: 25 Sep 2024; Accepted: 09 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Yuan, Ning, Huo and Feng. 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: Weimin Yuan, Hebei Agricultural University, Baoding, 071001, Hebei, China

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