ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Mental Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1584232
Impact of Parenting Style Disparities on Mental Health of Medical College Students: An Analysis of Mediating Effects of Positive Psychological Qualities
Provisionally accepted
- 1Wannan Medical College, Wuhu, China
- 2Chizhou Vocational and Technical College, China/Chizhou, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Background: Research has shown that parenting style disparities have a significant impact on the mental health of college students. However, the underlying reasons behind this phenomenon have not been sufficiently explored. This study systematically examines the impact of parenting style disparities on the mental health of medical college students from the perspective of positive psychology and analyzes the mediating effects of positive psychological qualities.Method: This study administered questionnaires to 3,387 medical students in Wuhu, China, all of whom came from two-parent families. Specifically, the Short-Egna Minnen av Barndoms Uppfostran for Children (s-EMBU-C) questionnaire was used to assess parenting style disparities, whereas the SCL-90 scale was utilized to evaluate mental health problems. Additionally, the Chinese College Student Positive Psychological Quality Scale was employed to assess positive psychological qualities. The hypothesis is proposed that positive psychological qualities mediate the relationship between parenting style disparities and mental health problems, and the bootstrap method was employed to examine the mediating effect. Additionally, a multivariate linear regression model was utilized to identify the factors associated with mental health problems.Results: The study revealed a significant positive correlation between parenting style disparities and mental health problems (r = 0.152, p<0.01); conversely, parenting style disparities were significantly negatively correlated with positive psychological qualities (r = -0.070, p<0.01). Additionally, positive psychological qualities were significantly negatively correlated with mental health problems (r = -0.201, p<0.01). Furthermore, positive psychological qualities played a partial mediating role between parenting style disparities and mental health problems, accounting for 12.398% of the total effect.Conclusion: Parenting style disparities significantly negatively predict positive psychological qualities in medical college students, whereas positive psychological qualities significantly negatively predict mental health problems. Positive psychological qualities play a partial mediating role between parenting style disparities and mental health problems among medical college students. The main findings emphasize the importance of consistent parenting styles and the cultivation of positive psychological qualities for the mental health of medical college students.KEYWORDS: mental health, parenting style disparities, positive psychological qualities, mediating effect
Keywords: Mental Health, parenting style disparities, Positive psychological qualities, Mediating effect, college & doctoral students
Received: 27 Feb 2025; Accepted: 11 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yang, Song, Wu, Wang and Liu. 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:
Xusheng Wang, Chizhou Vocational and Technical College, China/Chizhou, China
Yuting Liu, Wannan Medical College, Wuhu, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.