The impacts of economic hardship and family long-term care needs on adolescent depression and aggressive behaviors through family relational mechanisms: from the perspective of family stress model

The findings suggest that economic hardship is a stronger family stressor than long-term care needs, and parental conflict serves as a more significant mediator than parent-child relationship quality in predicting adolescent depression and aggressive behaviors in Chinese contexts. These results highlight the importance of developing stressor-specific and culturally sensitive family interventions that interparental conflicts to effectively reduce the negative impacts of family stress on adolescent mental and behavioral health. Additionally, gender-sensitive interventions may be particularly beneficial due to stronger family stress effects on relational outcomes, depression, and aggressive behaviors among female adolescents.