Interplay between Mental Health and the Quality of Social Relationships: The Role of Traumatic Life Events during Childhood and Adolescence

Abstract

Mental health and social relationships are widely known to have a strong relation; still, the directionality remains unclear. The experience of early traumatic life events (TLEs) may moderate the association between mental health and social relationship quality due to its detrimental impact on psychosocial functioning. The current study examined the directionality between mental health and social relationships across adolescence, and the moderating role of TLEs in the association using three waves (T2: N = 2149, Mage = 13.6). Results indicated that poor family relationships predicted mental health problems across adolescence, while mental health problems predicted poorer family relationships only among older adolescents. Young adolescents with more mental health problems showed poorer peer relationships, while the reverse direction was not found. The experience of TLEs damaged adolescents’ mental health and social relationships, but it did not exacerbate the association between mental health problems and the quality of social relationships. The findings provide strong evidence for the causal direction between adolescents’ mental health and social relationships. Implementing effective intervention aimed at reducing psychosocial problems among adolescents who experienced TLEs is recommended.