ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Adolescent and Young Adult Psychiatry
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1651506
Network Characteristics of Emotional Resilience, Anxiety, and Depression Among Chinese Adolescents and Their Gender Differences
Provisionally accepted
- 1Mental Health Center of Yangtze University, Jingzhou, China
- 2Department of Psychiatry, Jingzhou Rongjun Special Care Hospital, Jingzhou City, China
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Objective: To explore the network structure of emotional resilience and anxiety-depressive symptoms in adolescents and identify gender differences in these networks. Method: A convenience sample of students from 21 middle schools in Jingzhou City was recruited for an online questionnaire survey. Emotional resilience, anxiety, and depression symptoms were assessed using the Adolescents' Emotional Resilience Questionnaire, Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7), and Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), respectively. Network analysis was performed to construct a model of emotional resilience dimensions (GP: generate positive emotion, RN: recover from negativity) and anxiety-depressive symptoms, with key features identified via expected influence (EI) and bridge expected influence (bEI). Gender differences were tested using the Network Comparison Test. Results: A total of 17,499 adolescents were included. The prevalence of anxiety (GAD-7 ≥10) was 7.43% in males and 13.32% in females; depression (PHQ-9 ≥10) prevalence was 9.89% in males and 16.33% in females. Core symptoms included "uncontrollable worry," "depressed mood," and "psychomotor problems," while four bridge symptoms were identified: "GP," "RN," "restlessness," and "depressed mood. " Network structure (M = 0.144, p < 0.001) and global strength (S = 0.354, p < 0.001) differed significantly by gender. Conclusion: Adolescents need to develop emotional resilience in a balanced manner, and targeted interventions on core (e.g., "uncontrollable worry", "psychomotor problems") and bridge symptoms (e.g., "GP," "RN," "restlessness" and "depressed mood") in the context of anxiety and depression are crucial for preventing these conditions in youth.
Keywords: emotional resilience, Anxiety, Depression, Network analysis, gender differences, adolescents
Received: 21 Jun 2025; Accepted: 02 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liu, Pi, Liu, Zhang, Luo, Zhang, Zhang and Nie. 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:
Xin-Feng Zhang, Department of Psychiatry, Jingzhou Rongjun Special Care Hospital, Jingzhou City, China
Suo-Cheng Nie, Mental Health Center of Yangtze University, Jingzhou, China
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