Better family relationships––higher well-being: The connection between relationship quality and health related resources

By Dennis Grevenstein, M. Bluemke, J. Schweitzer, C. Aguilar-Raab. Mental health & prevention, 2019

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Abstract Family relationships form very important social relationships. They provide the social context enabling the development for a healthy personality and fostering social competencies and the capacity for social adjustment. Several constructs constitute a complex sample of health beneficial attributes, such as resilience, sense of coherence, self-compassion and others, that haven't been investigated in connection with perceived quality of family relationships and collective family efficacy. In three studies we investigated, if perceived quality of family relationships – assessed with a relatively new measure: the Evaluation of Social Systems Scale – was associated with these advantageous health-related qualities, additionally confirming EVOS’ construct validity. In study 1 (N = 207) and 2 (N = 305) university students filled out several paper-pencil-questionnaire whereas in study 3 (N = 528) a heterogeneous sample took part in an online-survey. Controlling for participants’ age and sex, better family relationships were associated with reduced psychological distress (r = −.30 to −.37), more satisfaction with life (r = 0.40), stronger resilience (r = 0.37), sense of coherence (r = 0.37), self-compassion (r = 0.33), optimism (r = 0.32), general self-efficacy (r = 0.27), and self-esteem (r = 0.34). Results highlight the importance of the family environment not only for psychological health and quality of life, but also for individual adaptation and well-being. In future research, this should be especially addressed in designing and providing preventative interventions for families.

Subfields: General Health Professions, Social Psychology, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/cf7b9b82a12467050bb51e48c7d7639723bf6864