# The relationship between anxiety and parent-child attachment and psychological resilience among Chinese college students: take 100 thousand college students as sample

## TL;DR

This study examines how parent-child attachment and psychological resilience relate to anxiety and depression in Chinese college students using a large nationwide sample.

## Contribution

The study uses a large sample of 100,253 Chinese college students to reveal distinct relationships between anxiety and parent-child attachment/resilience compared to depression.

## Key findings

- Anxiety symptoms are closely linked to parent-child attachment and psychological resilience, unlike depression symptoms.
- High rates of anxiety (42.74%) and depression (44.25%) symptoms were detected among college students.
- Depression scores showed no correlation with parent-child attachment or psychological resilience.

## Abstract

Previous studies on the relationship between good parent-child attachment, psychological resilience with mental health, have limitations such as small sample sizes and specific regions or universities, which lack universality. This study aims to survey a total of 100,253 college students across China to clarify the correlation between parent-child attachment, psychological resilience and mental health among college students.

Online questionnaires were performed from April 13 to 23, 2020 in China, used 10-item Depression Self-Rating Scale, Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7), Resilience Scale-Simplified (CD-RISC-10), and Parental Attachment Items in the Parent-Peer Attachment Scale (IPPA).

In total, 100,253 university students completed this survey. The detection rate of anxiety symptoms and depression symptoms were 42.74% and 44.25%, respectively. The parent-child attachment and psychological resilience among them were in a medium level. Anxiety symptoms, rather than depression symptoms were closely related to the quality of parent-child attachment and psychological resilience. However, there was no correlation between depression scores and parent-child attachment, as well as psychological resilience.

Our findings indicate that both depression and anxiety symptoms in college students’ population are high, and suggest that college students may have different etiology and pathogenesis of depression and anxiety. The treatment strategies for these two different types of symptoms for college students’ population, especially the psychological treatment strategies, should be differentiated accordingly.