- Title
- Mental health and wellbeing during the transition to adulthood
- Creator
- Gallagher, Emma Michelle
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2014
- Description
- Professional Doctorate - Doctorate of Clinical Psychology (DCP)
- Description
- Scope: Studies have shown that the early years of adulthood tend to have a high incidence of mental health problems (Newman et al. 1996). Internalising disorders such as depression and anxiety are also large contributors to the total burden of disease in Australia (Begg et al. 2003). Numerous studies have attempted to investigate factors associated with depression in young adults, with the view of identifying groups in need of early intervention. Some studies have looked longitudinally to find that early childhood trauma, family instability and parental psychopathology have lasting impacts on mental health into adulthood (Frye and Liem 2011; Stoolmiller et al. 2005). Other studies have employed a more contextual approach. Factors such as current levels of social support and attachment style were identified as having protective effects against current depression levels (Pettit et al. 2011; Riggs and Han 2009). Despite the large body of work to date on young adult mental health, there remains a need for studies using multi-factorial models (Riggs and Han 2009). Purpose: One purpose of the current study was to replicate Arnett’s (1997; 2000) model of agreed criteria for adulthood. The second purpose of the study was to investigate potential links between depressive symptoms and psychological factors such as insight, self-reflection, positive social comparison, and coping ability while controlling for the potentially confounding variables of anxiety and hopelessness. Methodology: A sample of 127 mainly undergraduate university students (78%) completed an online survey. Data was first analysed in a hierarchical multiple linear regression before a path analysis was employed to create a model that best explained the direct and indirect links between observed variables. Results: The four most commonly endorsed criteria for adulthood came from factors relating to independence and biological transitions. The independence factors matched the results of Arnett’s (1997) study. The results of the study also showed that after controlling for anxiety and hopelessness, there were positive associations between low depression levels and positive social comparison, insight, and norm compliance. Overall, insight was found to be the strongest individual predictor of mental wellbeing. Conclusions and Implications: The present study highlights the importance of considering internal factors in the investigation of predictors of young adult mental health. Future studies would benefit from including such an approach when exploring structural predictors to assist in identifying at-risk groups. The implication of focusing on internal factors, and in particular the finding that insight levels play an important role in young adult mental health, is the possibility of targeted clinical interventions. Such interventions could dramatically improve the health, wellbeing, and future of young adults.
- Subject
- emerging adulthood; mental health; depression; coping; path analysis
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1049229
- Identifier
- uon:15008
- Rights
- Copyright 2014 Emma Michelle Gallagher
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Thesis | 468 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |