title: The Role of Family Environment in Depressive Symptoms among University Students: A Large Sample Survey in China.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To explore the relationship between family environment and depressive symptoms and to evaluate the influence of hard and soft family environmental factors on depression levels in a large sample of university students in China.
  
  
  METHODS
  A multi-stage stratified sampling procedure was used to select 6,000 participants. The response rate was 88.8%, with 5,329 students completing the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and the Family Environment Scale Chinese Version (FES-CV), which was adapted for the Chinese population. Differences between the groups were tested for significance by the Student's t-test; ANOVA was used to test continuous variables. The relationship between soft family environmental factors and BDI were tested by Pearson correlation analysis. Hierarchical linear regression analysis was conducted to model the effects of hard environmental factors and soft environmental factors on depression in university students.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 11.8% of students scored above the threshold of moderate depression (BDI≧14). Hard family environmental factors such as parent relationship, family economic status, level of parental literacy and non-intact family structure were associated with depressive symptoms. The soft family environmental factors--conflict and control--were positively associated with depression, while cohesion was negatively related to depressive symptom after controlling for other important associates of depression. Hierarchical regression analysis indicated that the soft family environment correlates more strongly with depression than the hard family environment.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Soft family environmental factors--especially cohesion, conflict and control--appeared to play an important role in the occurrence of depressive symptoms. These findings underline the significance of the family environment as a source of risk factors for depression among university students in China and suggest that family-based interventions and improvement are very important to reduce depression among university students.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Public Health Institute, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, China.
authors.forename: Yunmiao
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Public Health Institute, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, China.
authors.forename: Xiuxian
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Public Health Institute, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, China.
authors.forename: Yanjie
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Department of Endocrinology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Lu
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Public Health Institute, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, China.
authors.forename: Xiaohui
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Qiu
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Public Health Institute, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, China.
authors.forename: Zhengxue
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Qiao
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Public Health Institute, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, China.
authors.forename: Jiawei
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Department of Endocrinology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Pan
authors.affiliation: Department of Endocrinology, Jining Medical College, Jining, China.
authors.forename: Bo
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Ban
authors.affiliation: Medical Psychological Institute, SecondXiangyaHospital, CentralSouthUniversity, Changsha, China.
authors.forename: Xiongzhao
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: The First Affiliated Hospital, WenzhouMedicalUniversity, Wenzhou, China.
authors.forename: Jincai
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: He
authors.affiliation: The fifth affiliated hospital, HarbinMedicalUniversity, Daqing, China.
authors.forename: Yongqing
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.affiliation: The First Affiliated Hospital, HarbinMedicalUniversity, Harbin, China.
authors.forename: Bing
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Bai
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002681:China; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology*; D004777:Environment; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010555:Personality Inventory; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012307:Risk Factors; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014495:Universities; D055815:Young Adult