ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Mental Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1642529
This article is part of the Research TopicYouth Mental HealthView all articles
Alone and Under Pressure: The Transdiagnostic Role of Loneliness, Stress, and Psychological Inflexibility in University Student Mental Health
Provisionally accepted
Silvia Libertad Vaca1
Mateo Mateo-Peñaherrera2
Daniela Batallas3
Belén Paladines1
Carla López Núñez4
Pablo Ruisoto5,6,7*- 1Department of Psychology, Universidad Tecnica Particular de Loja, Loja, Ecuador
- 2The University of Arizona School of Animal and Comparative Biomedical Sciences, Tucson, United States
- 3Laboratory of Social Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Psychobiology and IDOCAL, Universitat de Valencia, Valencia, Spain
- 4Department of Personality, Assessment and Psychological Treatments, Universidad de Sevilla Facultad de Psicologia, Seville, Spain
- 5Department of Health Sciences, Public University of Navarre, Pamplona, Spain
- 6Navarra Institute for Health Research (IdiSNA), Pamplona, Spain
- 7Institute for Advanced Social Research (I-Communitas), Pamplona, Spain
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University students face increasing mental health challenges that demand both clinical and population-level strategies. This study examined how three transdiagnostic factorspsychological inflexibility, perceived stress, and loneliness-interact to predict anxiety, depression, and life satisfaction. A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 7,905 students from 11 Ecuadorian universities, using validated instruments (AAQ-II, PSS, UCLA-3, PHQ-4, and LSQ). Sequential Canonical Analysis revealed a structured cascade: psychological inflexibility predicted perceived stress, which in turn predicted loneliness. All three variables contributed independently to poorer mental health outcomes. Loneliness emerged as the strongest predictor of anxiety, depression, and reduced life satisfaction, supporting its role as a chronic social stressor. Together, these factors explained 45% of the variance in a higher-order mental health factor and 35% of the variance in life satisfaction. Framed within Rose's distinction between the causes of individual cases and the causes of population incidence, the findings highlight the need for integrated mental health strategies that address both individual vulnerability and social isolation in higher education settings.
Keywords: Loneliness, perceived stress, Psychological inflexibility, Mental Health, life satisfaction, transdiagnostic model, public mental health
Received: 06 Jun 2025; Accepted: 28 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Vaca, Mateo-Peñaherrera, Batallas, Paladines, López Núñez and Ruisoto. 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: Pablo Ruisoto, Department of Health Sciences, Public University of Navarre, Pamplona, Spain
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