A Study On The Relationship Between The Development Of Anxiety And Depression And The Type Of Social Network

Social relationships play a beneficial role in maintaining mental health.Previous studies have focused on a certain aspect of social relationships,such as friendship or parent-child relationships,while this research has examined a wider range of social relationship groups.In addition,previous studies mostly used variable-centered methods,which failed to capture the systematic connections between different components of the social network structure.Therefore,this paper adopts a pattern-centered approaches to explore the potential types of social networks and the impact of different social network types on depression and anxiety,and uses the method of latent transition analysis to explore the transformation patterns of different potential types of anxiety and depression.Finally,this study explores the influence of different social network types on the transition patterns of anxiety and depression.This study takes students from Tianjin Normal University as the research objects,using social network questionnaires,patient health questionnaires 9(PHQ-9)and generalized anxiety disorder scales 7(GAD-7)as research tools.The research adopts two research methods:horizontal study and longitudinal study.In the horizontal study,the data of social networks,anxiety and depression were collected,with 304 valid data.In the longitudinal study,social network data and four times of anxiety and depression data were collected,with 303 valid data.The results showed that:(1)college students' social networks can identify three potential types: diverse family types,close family types,and friends-centered types;(2)the depression of college students can be divided into four potential types: high depression-high suicide,moderate depression-moderate suicide,moderate depression-low suicide and low depression-low suicide;(3)anxiety can be divided into four potential types: high anxiety-high restlessness,medium anxiety-medium restlessness,medium anxiety-low restlessness and low anxiety-low restlessness;(4)in the latent transition analysis,most of the subjects with more severe depression and anxiety showed a tendency to get better over time;(5)there was no significant difference in scores of anxiety and depression among social network types,but there were differences in social network structures among potential types of anxiety and depression.The larger the size of social network,the lower the symptoms of anxiety and depression,and the more the proportion of immediate family members,the more obvious the symptoms of depression.(6)in the transitioning population,the level of depression in the subjects of the close family type will decrease over time,but the level of anxiety will increase.Compared with diversified family types,the friend-centered subjects will increase their depression level over time,but their anxiety level will decrease.This study explores a wider range of social relationships outside the nuclear family and explores the influence of social network types on anxiety and depression over time,which can help us to understand college students' social networks and provide new insights for using social networks to improve adult mental health.