Mental wellbeing, as an integral part of our overall health, is considered a vital public health issue. It encompasses multiple dimensions, such as our performance in relationships, work, and entertainment activities in the face of adversity (1). Mental wellbeing is defined as positive mental health, in which every individual realizes their potential, can cope with daily stressors, works effectively, and contributes to their community (2). Among the components of subjective wellbeing, life satisfaction has been considered one of the most important indicators (3). According to Diener et al. life satisfaction has been defined as “a person's cognitive and affective evaluations of his or her life,” it was also the main dimension of the mental health (4, 5). Assessing the life satisfaction and mental wellbeing of adolescents is considerably more challenging than with other age groups, as the transition from childhood to maturity presents its unique set of problems and opportunities (6). Several studies revealed a strong correlation between life satisfaction and quality of life, family environment, self-esteem physical, and mental health (4, 7–9). In addition, higher satisfaction with life was likely to play an important role against negative mental health situations such as stress, and prevent the development of violent behavior or suicidal and self-harm behavior (10–13). Suldo and Huebner also discovered that teenagers with high levels of life satisfaction were less likely to engage in future-threatening activities stresses (13).

The most common factors associated with adolescents' life satisfaction include self-esteem, internal control, family, and peer relationships (14). Although individuals may form many interpersonal relationships throughout their lives, the parent-child relationship is especially critical to the development and success of adolescents as its influences begin early in life (15). Therefore, it is important to determine how different family dynamics influence an adolescent's life satisfaction. Current research suggested that teenage life satisfaction is linked to a variety of family factors, such as parental support and family connections (16, 17). Adolescents tend to have lower life satisfaction when there are conflicts and high stress within the family (16). On the other hand, research by Moskenes revealed that self-esteem is a positive factor associated with adolescents' life satisfaction and mental wellbeing (14). Self-esteem is defined as a person's perception of sentiments and their value in the community (18) and has been linked with several positive outcomes, including psychological health and wellbeing of adolescents (17, 19, 20). The definition of resilience covers the dynamic process of positive adaptation to adversity and stress, and is usually included in research on children or public health patients (21, 22). Among adolescents, resilience has a major impact on academic achievement, social competence, and the avoidance of hazardous conducts, thus it is strongly associated with adolescent life satisfaction (23, 24). This study identifies parent-child relationship, self-esteem, and resilience as the three most important indicators of life satisfaction and mental wellbeing and will assess the correlation of these concepts with proposed problems as well as with each other.

In Vietnam, existing literature suggested that adolescents are increasingly exposed to risk factors such as school violence, mental disorders, juvenile delinquency, and abortion (25). A recent report by UNICEF indicated that mental health disorders among young people in Vietnam are rapidly increasing, with 8–29% experiencing mental health problems (26). Gender discrimination also exacerbates this problem: in Vietnamese tradition, boys tend to receive certain privileges and more parental attention than girls do (27, 28). This dynamic deeply upsets the relationship between children and parents, and lowers the female child's self-esteem, especially in their adolescent years. Despite the severity of problems among adolescents, studies on life satisfaction and mental wellbeing of this population in Vietnam have been limited, especially those that investigate the influence of the parent-child relationship on the overall life satisfaction and mental wellbeing of children in their adolescent years. Therefore, this study aims at filling the research gap and determining patterns of life satisfaction and mental health of adolescents in Vietnam as well as exploring the potential impact of parent-child relationships, self-esteem, and resilience of Vietnamese young people on their life satisfaction and mental wellbeing. The main hypothesis of this study is that the parent-child relationship has a significant role in Quality of Life and mental wellbeing through self-esteem and protective factors for resilience as a mediator.

Table 1 shows the individual characteristics of 1,023 students in this study. About 50.4% of the participants were female. Most of the respondents were living in rural areas (73.7%) and had a nuclear family (81.1%). Good or fair academic performances were the most popular responses among participants (44.6 and 24.8%, respectively). Additionally, the percentages of having a conflict with their father, their mother, and their parent were 74.6, 73.9, and 62.5, respectively. The mean ages of students' mothers and fathers were 42.0 and 45.2, respectively. The mean score of the three subscales of the resilience scale “Personal resources,” “Social resources-peer,” and “Social resources-family” was 25.2, 24.7, and 28.7, respectively. Besides, the average self-esteem score was 22.4. In terms of life satisfaction, There were 67.7% of participants reported that they felt from “Slightly satisfied” to “Extremely satisfied” with life. The other levels of life satisfaction extremely dissatisfied, dissatisfied, slightly dissatisfied, and neutral, had a smaller percentage with 1.9, 7.3, 17.1, and 6.1%, respectively, and there was a statistically significant difference between male and female respondents (p < 0.05).

The construct validity and reliability of the relationship in family participants were reported in Table 2. Based on factor analysis, 8 items were divided into 2 factors, including “Encounter loneliness and isolation within own family” (5 items), and “Having support and sharing from family members” (3 items) with Cronbach's alpha for each factor was 0.77. Besides, the proportion of students who selected “very often” for each item of factor 1 was from 42.1 to 58.6%. Similarly, the figure for the three remaining questions ranged from 25.9 to 55.5%.

Table 3 reveals the mean score of satisfaction with life scale and mental wellbeing of participants regarding some characteristics. Secondary students had higher life satisfaction as well as mental wellbeing score than high school students. The mean scores of students with excellent academic performance in both life satisfaction and mental health were higher than others (p < 0.05). There was a statistically significant dissimilarity in the score for life satisfaction and mental wellbeing between people having conflict with their father, their mother, or their parent as well as the number of their family members that they can confide in. Participants who had no conflict with their father/mother/both parents or had people to confide in had higher scores for satisfaction with life and mental wellbeing than others. The value score of the life satisfaction scale and WHO-5 scale was about 23.9 points and 61.5 points, respectively.

Table 4 showed results on factors associated with life satisfaction and mental wellbeing among participants. Females had a higher satisfaction with life score (Coef. = 0.77; 95%CI: 0.10; 1.44) but lower mental wellbeing score (Coef. = −6.00; 95%CI: −8.57; −3.44) than males. Those who were high school students and had conflicts with their fathers were likely to have lower life satisfaction points than others. Similarly, their figure for mental wellbeing was also lower. The score of satisfaction with life and mental wellbeing tended to increase by about 0.07 points and 0.56 points, respectively, when their father's age increased by 1 year. By contrast, students' mental wellbeing decreased by 0.77 when the age of the mother increased by 1 year. Besides, students' feelings at home were significantly associated with life satisfaction as well as the mental wellbeing of participants. “Encounter loneliness and isolation within own family” was a harmful factor of life satisfaction (Coef. = −1.05; 95%CI: −1.32; −0.79) and mental wellbeing (Coef. = −1.53; 95%CI: −2.51; −0.55). By contrast, “Having support and sharing from their family member” was a positive factor of life satisfaction (Coef. = 0.44; 95%CI: 0.23; 0.65). Those having family members to confide in intended to have a higher score of satisfaction with life than people who did not. When three domains of protective factors for the resilience scale–Personal Resources, Social Resources–Peers, and Social Resources–Family increased by one point, the satisfaction with life increased by 0.16 points, 0.22 points, and 0.16 points, respectively. Mental wellbeing scores also tended to increase by 0.83 points when the domain social resources-peer increased by one point. Meanwhile, self-esteem played a protective factor that increased both the life satisfaction and mental wellbeing of adolescents.

The path coefficients and p-value of structural equation modeling analysis are presented in Figure 1. The results showed that this structure had a good fit with RMSEA (0.051), CFI (0.994), and SRMR (0.013). Factors like “Having support and sharing from their family member,” “Self-esteem,” and “Protective factors for resilience” had positively associated with life satisfaction and mental wellbeing. By contrast, “Encounter loneliness and isolation within own family,” “Having a conflict with both parents” and “Grade” had negatively related to satisfaction with life, meanwhile, “Grade” and “Encounter loneliness and isolation within own family” had a negative correlation with mental wellbeing. Besides, “Having a conflict with father” were found to have a statistically significant relationship with both mental health and satisfaction with life. Overall, the model for mental wellbeing and satisfaction with life with ten factors explained 42.7% (R² = 0.427) of the life satisfaction variance and mental wellbeing variance.

Table 5 presented the direct and total effects.

Direct Effects: Significant direct effects were observed for conflict with both parents on satisfaction with life (β = 12.8%, p < 0.001) and mental wellbeing (β = 85.4%, p < 0.001) via self-esteem. Through self-esteem and resilience, both two factors “having support and sharing” and “encounter loneliness and isolation” were positively associated with life satisfaction and mental wellbeing.

Total effects: Conflict with both parents was negatively associated with life satisfaction via self-esteem (14.7% total effect on life satisfaction). Two constructs “Having support and sharing from family members,” and “Encounter loneliness and isolation within own family” influenced both satisfaction with life and mental wellbeing. In terms of the first construct, about 47.9 and 68.2% of the total effect on satisfaction with life and mental wellbeing respectively was indirect effect via the resilience scale, while these figures were 3.9 and 37.5% via self-esteem. Regarding the influence of the “Encounter loneliness and isolation” construct on life satisfaction and mental health, 4.7 and 28.0% of the total effect was indirect effect via the self-esteem scale, while 31.5 and 36.6% of the total effect was indirect effect via resilience scale.

This study revealed that a high percentage of children had a conflict with their father or mother (>70%), and nearly 30% of participants were dissatisfied with life. Conflict with father was the negative factor that decrease life satisfaction and mental wellbeing score. Encounter loneliness and isolation within own family and protective factor for resilience from personal, peers, and family had a positive impact on life satisfaction and mental wellbeing.

In terms of individual characteristics, our research reveals that male adolescents had higher life satisfaction scores than females. Gender differences in life satisfaction, though well-proven, are inconsistent. Research by Callahan et al. indicated that women tend to have a higher level of life satisfaction than men (33), while Graue et al. suggested that there is no gender difference in life satisfaction among their sample (34). Research on Vietnamese youths also reported a possibility of female children having lower study grades under the psychological influences of gender discrimination within their families (26, 35). Furthermore, when compared to adolescents with excellent academic performance, those with lower academic performance had higher life satisfaction and mental wellbeing scores. Indeed, the overemphasis on academic excellence has been found to have negative influences on the child's performance, as it leads to overwork, which often results in serious work-life imbalance (31). Thus, in Vietnam and other male-bias cultures, parents, teachers, and society must recognize and reduce the scope of such discrimination on life satisfaction and the mental wellbeing of adolescents.

This study revealed encounter of loneliness and isolation within own family had negatively associated with satisfaction with life and mental wellbeing. This result was similar to the Çivitci et al. (19). Loneliness is a negative or distressing emotion that accompanies the perception that one's social needs are not being fully met and may follow different developmental trajectories (36). It can become a negative factor of satisfaction with life and mental wellbeing if the experience of loneliness becomes chronic (37). Our research results also show that adolescents' self-esteem is associated with life satisfaction and mental wellbeing. A similar trend was reported in previous studies (38, 39). One paper indicated that high self-esteem can predict mental health conditions, where adolescents with higher self-esteem are linked to fewer psychiatric symptoms such as anxiety/depression (38, 39). It is thus necessary to educate families to be aware of the importance of self-esteem and adapt interventions to increase the self-esteem of their children. In terms of relationships within the family, conflicts with the father have been found to negatively affect the life satisfaction and mental wellbeing of adolescents. This finding is in line with a study by Lachowska (40), which suggests that the compromise and conflict resolution of a father and his adolescent child may have a positive effect on the life satisfaction of that child. Negative impacts of troublesome relationships with parents can also severely inhibit the mental health development of adolescents (41). Similarly, having support and close relationships with family members was positively associated with the youth's life satisfaction and mental wellbeing. Strengthening the emotional bond of the family as well as encouraging teenagers to talk about their problems, therefore, are important implications to improve the life satisfaction and mental wellbeing of adolescents (6, 42).

In terms of protective factors, individuals, families, and peers positively predict the resilience of participants, which increased the life satisfaction of adolescents. Previous studies have shown the correlation of different variables, such as individual characteristics (gender, grade), self-esteem, resilience, conflict with parents, loneliness, and isolation within their family, having supportive and sharing family members, with life satisfaction and mental wellbeing (14, 16, 19, 20, 33, 40, 42–44). However, our study proposes a new model of evaluating factors associated with adolescents' life satisfaction and mental wellbeing. This predictive model indicates that individual factors (including grade and gender) and conflict with parents negatively affect adolescents' life satisfaction and mental wellbeing. Besides, self-esteem and protective factors for resilience are two important mediating factors between feelings of students at home (including loneliness and isolation within the family and having supportive and sharing family members), conflict with parents, and life satisfaction and mental wellbeing.

Our research once again highlights the impact of family on life satisfaction and the mental wellbeing of children. Not only at school, but at home, children should be encouraged to share their feelings and resolve conflicts with their parents. Our research lays the groundwork for multi-level analysis for simultaneous assessments of personal and interpersonal factors to address remaining problems and promote children's wellbeing and life satisfaction. From this ecological framework, interventions must focus on strengthening social support across all dimensions of the children's lives, community resources, and family relationships.

Our study has certain limitations. Firstly, the cross-sectional study model prevented us from determining a causal relationship. Secondly, the information was collected from self-reported questionnaires, which may be subject to personal bias, such as academic performance may be subjective. Thirdly, although the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) is used worldwide, no previous studies have been conducted in Vietnam and therefore we could not provide a comparison of findings within the country. However, comparisons with global studies were conducted. Despite the above limitations, our research is among the pioneers in providing a comprehensive view of life satisfaction and mental wellbeing in adolescents by exploring individual and community-related factors, including social relationships.

Our study investigates important factors associated with life satisfaction and mental wellbeing among adolescents, specifically parent-child relationships, self-esteem, and resilience. The results highlight the influences of academic expectations and gender bias on the mental wellbeing of youths, especially in Asian cultures. Strengthening the family bond and encouraging young people to share their feelings are crucial to enhancing adolescents' mental health status.

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by all procedures performed in studies involving human participants were by the ethical standards of the Youth Research Institute, Vietnam, and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Online Informed consent was obtained from all participants. Written informed consent to participate in this study was provided by the participants' legal guardian/next of kin.

Survey conception: VT, HND, and TMT. Data collection: VT, TBT, KV, HMD, and NT. Project management: VT and TPT. Data analysis: TN and VT. Data interpretation: HND and TMT. Drafting of the manuscript: VT. Reviewing and editing the manuscript: PA, LB, GF, CL, CH, and RH. All authors revised the manuscript critically and gave final approval of the version to be published.