Meaning in life and adolescent depression and anxiety in China: a large-scale study of dual pathways through life satisfaction and resilience.

Presence of meaning in life was strongly associated with lower depression and anxiety and higher life satisfaction and resilience in Chinese adolescents.

• Data were drawn from the Guangdong Adolescents Mental Health Survey conducted between September and December 2023.
• The sample included 5,759 adolescents.
• Spearman's rank correlation analysis was used to investigate relationships among research variables.
• Presence of meaning showed negative associations with depression and anxiety and positive associations with life satisfaction and resilience.

Life satisfaction and resilience partially mediated the relationship between presence of meaning in life and mental health outcomes.

• Mediation analysis was employed to examine the mechanism through which meaning in life influences mental health.
• Both life satisfaction and resilience served as partial mediators between presence of meaning and depression and anxiety.
• Life satisfaction emerged as the dominant pathway in these mediation models.
• The indirect effects through life satisfaction were larger than those through resilience.

Search for meaning exhibited mixed associations with mental health, predicting greater distress once indirect effects were controlled.

• Search for meaning showed a different pattern from presence of meaning in its relationship to depression and anxiety.
• After controlling for indirect effects through life satisfaction and resilience, search for meaning predicted greater psychological distress.
• The authors interpreted this as suggesting that existential exploration may entail short-term costs during identity formation.
• This pattern was described as reflecting 'normative struggles for identity and coherence' in adolescence.

The study examined dual pathways—life satisfaction and resilience—through which meaning in life influences adolescent depression and anxiety in a non-Western context.

• The study was conducted in Guangdong, China, specifically targeting a population whose mechanisms had been described as 'under-examined' in prior literature.
• The large-scale sample of 5,759 adolescents was surveyed between September and December 2023.
• The dual-pathway mediation model tested both life satisfaction and resilience simultaneously as mediators.
• The findings were presented as supporting 'a culturally adaptable, evidence-based avenue for youth mental-health promotion in China.'

Cultivating meaning in life was proposed as an evidence-based avenue for youth mental-health promotion in China.

• The authors described meaning in life as functioning as 'both a stabilising and developmental force in adolescent mental health.'
• The buffering of distress was attributed to pathways through satisfaction and resilience.
• The approach was characterized as 'culturally adaptable' for non-Western youth.
• This recommendation was based on findings from a large community sample of 5,759 Chinese adolescents.