College Student Cohesive-Flexible Family Functioning and Mental Health

Abstract

The current study examined the relationship between college students’ perception of cohesive-flexible family functioning and anxiety and depression and whether positive family communication and self-compassion mediated this relationship. Gender differences among these relationships were also explored. Five hundred college students from a southeastern public university completed an online survey (78% females, 46% Caucasian, 55% 18–19 years old). Multiple-sample latent structural equation modeling analyses revealed that cohesive-flexible family functioning was related to higher levels of positive communication, positive communication was related to higher levels of self-compassion, and that higher levels of self-compassion were related to lower levels of depression and anxiety. Positive communication and self-compassion mediated the relationship between cohesive-flexible family functioning and anxiety and depression. Moderation analyses revealed no significant differences between males and females. Implications for practitioners who work with college students are discussed.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 36 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.