Moderating and Mediating Effects of Resilience Together with Neuroticism on Depressive Symptoms in Adult Volunteers

Shunichiro Ito; Chihiro Morishita; Jiro Masuya; Miki Ono; Mina Honyashiki; Shinji Higashi; Yu Tamada; Yota Fujimura; Takeshi Inoue

doi:10.2147/NDT.S370201

Moderating and Mediating Effects of Resilience Together with Neuroticism on Depressive Symptoms in Adult Volunteers

Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat. 2022 Aug 17:18:1751-1761. doi: 10.2147/NDT.S370201. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Shunichiro Ito¹, Chihiro Morishita¹, Jiro Masuya¹, Miki Ono¹, Mina Honyashiki¹, Shinji Higashi^{1

2}, Yu Tamada^{1

3}, Yota Fujimura^{1

3}, Takeshi Inoue¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychiatry, Tokyo Medical University, Tokyo, 160-0023, Japan.
² Department of Psychiatry, Ibaraki Medical Center, Tokyo Medical University, Ibaraki, 300-0395, Japan.
³ Department of Psychiatry, Tokyo Medical University Hachioji Medical Center, Tokyo, 193-0998, Japan.

Abstract

Background: Parenting quality experienced in childhood affects depressive symptoms in adulthood, and neuroticism and resilience are attracting attention as personality traits that mediate the effects of parental rearing quality experienced in childhood on adulthood depressive symptoms. However, the interaction between neuroticism and resilience remains unclear. In this study, we hypothesized that resilience and neuroticism are mediators between parental rearing quality experienced in childhood and depressive symptoms in adulthood, and furthermore, that resilience and neuroticism interact with each other in their effects on depressive symptoms. To test these hypotheses, we conducted structural equation modeling and hierarchical multiple regression analysis including interactions in adult volunteers.

Methods: A self-administered questionnaire survey was conducted on 528 adult volunteers recruited at Tokyo Medical University for 1 year from April 2017 to April 2018. The Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI), Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-revised short version, Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, and Patient Health Questionnaire-9 were used as questionnaires, and their scores were analyzed using structure equation modeling. The interaction between resilience and neuroticism was analyzed using hierarchical multiple regression analysis.

Results: Structural equation modeling showed that parenting quality (care and overprotection) experienced in childhood had a significant indirect effect on the severity of depressive symptoms in adulthood, mediated by both neuroticism and resilience. Among the subscores of the PBI, "care" showed opposite effects to "overprotection". Structural equation modeling of "care" and "overprotection" explained 36.9% and 36.6% of the variability in depressive symptoms in adulthood, respectively. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed that the negative interaction between neuroticism and resilience had a significant effect on depressive symptom severity in adulthood.

Conclusion: The results of this study show that resilience and neuroticism are mediators of the effects from parental child-rearing to depressive symptoms in adulthood. Furthermore, resilience antagonizes the effect of neuroticism on adulthood depressive symptoms.

Keywords: depressive symptoms; hierarchical multiple regression analysis; neuroticism; parenting; resilience; structure equation modeling.

Grants and funding

This work was partly supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (no. 21K07510 to T. Inoue) from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology-Japan.