Perceived stress emerged as a central mechanism linking psychological inflexibility and impulsivity with distress- and wellbeing-related outcomes among Ecuadorian university students, with the model explaining 55% of depressive symptoms and 33% of life satisfaction variance.
The structural equation model demonstrated adequate overall fit across all indices.
Psychological inflexibility showed strong direct associations with perceived stress, depressive symptoms, and life satisfaction.
Impulsivity showed significant but smaller associations with perceived stress and depressive symptoms.
Perceived stress was significantly associated with both depressive symptoms and life satisfaction.
Perceived stress significantly mediated the relationship between psychological inflexibility and both mental health outcomes.
Perceived stress significantly mediated the relationship between impulsivity and both mental health outcomes.
The model explained a substantial portion of variance in depressive symptoms and a moderate portion of variance in life satisfaction.
The authors identified psychological inflexibility and impulsivity as potentially relevant transdiagnostic targets for university mental health promotion.
This research suggests that among university students in Ecuador, the way people relate to their own thoughts and feelings — specifically how psychologically flexible or rigid they are — plays a major role in both depression and life satisfaction. Students who struggle to adapt their thinking and behavior to changing situations (high psychological inflexibility) and those who tend to act impulsively reported more stress, more depressive symptoms, and lower life satisfaction. Importantly, much of these negative effects appeared to work through perceived stress: feeling stressed seemed to be the key pathway connecting these personality traits to mental health outcomes. The study found that psychological inflexibility was a particularly powerful predictor, showing both strong direct effects on depression and life satisfaction and strong indirect effects operating through stress. Impulsivity also mattered, but its effects were smaller and operated almost entirely through stress rather than directly. Together, these factors explained 55% of the variation in depressive symptoms and 33% of the variation in life satisfaction across the 4,524 students studied. This research suggests that university mental health programs might benefit from targeting perceived stress, psychological inflexibility, and impulsivity as shared risk factors that cut across multiple mental health problems — a 'transdiagnostic' approach. Rather than treating each mental health condition separately, interventions addressing these common underlying processes could potentially help students with a range of difficulties. However, because the study collected data at a single point in time, it cannot confirm that these factors actually cause mental health problems over time, and the findings should be tested in future studies that follow students over longer periods.
Paladines-Costa M, López-Guerra V, Sarriá E, Recio P, Torres-Carrión P. (2026). Transdiagnostic processes in university mental health: the role of psychological inflexibility, impulsivity and stress in depression and life satisfaction using structural equation modeling.. Frontiers in public health. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2026.1924538