How Healthy Families Help Filipino College Students Care for Themselves and Feel Mentally Well
Article information
Felipe, J. J. G., Cleofas, J. V., & Pua, J. S. L. C. (2024). Family health and mental well-being among young Filipino undergraduates: The mediating role of self-care. Family Journal, 32(2), 241–248. https://doi.org/10.1177/10664807231205578
What this study is about
College can be mentally demanding. Students deal with academic pressure, relationships, identity questions, financial concerns, and uncertainty about the future. Much student mental health research focuses on individual stress, school workload, or peer support. This study adds another important factor: the family.
The study asks: How does family health influence the mental well-being of young Filipino undergraduates, and does self-care help explain this relationship?
This question matters in the Philippines because many college students continue living with their families while studying. Unlike in some Global North contexts where college is often associated with leaving home, many Filipino undergraduates remain deeply embedded in family life. Parents or other household members may help finance education, provide food and housing, shape routines, and influence health behaviors.
The paper also connects this to Filipino ideas of kagalingan and kaginhawaan, where wellness is closely tied to family life, relational support, and the overall well-being of the household.
The main idea: healthy families can promote mental health
The study uses the health-promoting family framework. This framework sees the family as a setting that shapes the health of its members through values, routines, relationships, resources, and everyday practices. In simple language, families can make it easier—or harder—for young people to live healthily.
The study focuses on family health, which means the overall health-promoting capacity of the family unit. It includes things like supportive relationships, emotional processes, healthy routines, health resources, and outside support.
The study then examines self-care as the bridge between family health and mental well-being. Self-care here does not mean luxury or individualistic “me time.” It refers to practical behaviors that help people maintain health, such as health awareness, nutrition, physical activity, sleep, rest, coping, and social support.
The key argument is this: healthy families may help students become mentally well partly because they encourage or enable better self-care.
What the researchers did
This was a cross-sectional mediation study involving 259 undergraduate students in Metro Manila. Participants were 18–24 years old, enrolled in undergraduate programs, living with family members, and residing in Metro Manila. Data were collected through an online survey.
The researchers measured three main variables:
- Family health, using the Family Health Scale–Short Form;
- Self-care, using the Self-Care Activities Screening Scale; and
- Mental well-being, using the Short Warwick–Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale.
The hypothesized model in Figure 1 on page 3 shows the expected pathway: family health predicts mental well-being directly, and also indirectly through self-care.
According to Table 1 on page 4, most respondents were female, slightly more than half were aged 21–24, and nearly half came from high-income households. The students reported moderate family health, moderate-to-high self-care, and moderate mental well-being.
What the study found
1) Family health was linked to better mental well-being
Students who reported healthier family environments also reported better mental well-being. This supports the idea that the family continues to matter during college, especially in Filipino contexts where young adults often remain closely connected to household life.
Mental well-being in this study refers to positive mental health: feeling useful, relaxed, able to think clearly, able to deal with problems, close to other people, and optimistic about the future.
In plain language: students from healthier family systems tended to feel mentally better.
2) Family health was linked to better self-care
The study also found that family health positively predicted self-care. This means that students from healthier families were more likely to engage in self-care practices.
This makes sense. A family that encourages health, communicates well, supports routines, and provides emotional or practical resources can make self-care easier. Students may sleep better, eat better, manage stress better, seek help earlier, or feel more supported in caring for themselves.
This finding is important because self-care is often framed as an individual responsibility. The study shows that self-care is also relational. People are more able to care for themselves when their environment supports care.
3) Self-care was strongly linked to mental well-being
Students who reported more self-care also reported better mental well-being. In fact, the correlation between self-care and mental well-being was stronger than the correlation between family health and mental well-being.
This suggests that self-care is a powerful pathway for student mental health. But again, the study does not frame self-care as something students must simply force themselves to do. Rather, self-care is partly shaped by family health and by the broader conditions that make care possible.
4) Self-care partly explained the family health–mental well-being link
The main finding is the mediation result.
Family health had a significant positive effect on mental well-being. When self-care was added to the model, family health still had a direct effect, but self-care also carried part of the effect. Specifically, self-care explained 46.89% of the relationship between family health and mental well-being.
The empirical model in Figure 2 on page 5 shows this clearly: family health predicts self-care, self-care predicts mental well-being, and family health still directly predicts mental well-being even after self-care is considered.
In simple terms:
Healthier family → better self-care → better mental well-being.
But because the mediation was partial, the family also supports mental well-being in other ways beyond self-care. These may include emotional safety, financial support, encouragement, belonging, health resources, and reduced household stress.
5) Young people are not passive recipients of family health
One important theoretical contribution of the study is that it highlights the active role of young people. The health-promoting family framework often emphasizes how families influence children or adolescents. This study shows that even young adult students can actively convert family health into mental well-being through their own self-care practices.
This is a useful shift. Students are not only shaped by their families. They also act. They use available family support, routines, resources, and relational stability to care for themselves.
6) The study extends family health research beyond childhood
Most studies using the health-promoting family framework focus on children and adolescents. This study applies the model to young adult college students. That matters because many Filipino undergraduates are legally adults but still live within family systems. Their mental health cannot be fully understood if family life is ignored.
The paper suggests that future studies can also examine family health among older students, faculty, staff, middle-aged adults, and older family members.
Bottom line
This study shows that family health matters for Filipino college students’ mental well-being. Healthy families can support students directly, but they also matter because they help students practice self-care.
The key message is not “students should just do more self-care.” The better message is: families, schools, and communities should create conditions where self-care becomes possible, supported, and normal.
Policy/practice recommendations
- Include family health in student mental health assessment
University counselors, nurses, and student affairs professionals can include simple family health screening in routine wellness assessments, especially for students living with family. - Offer family-oriented psychoeducation
Schools can provide sessions for parents and family members on how family routines, communication, emotional support, and health practices affect student mental well-being. - Teach self-care as a skill, not a slogan
Self-care programs should include practical guidance on sleep, nutrition, movement, stress management, help-seeking, health awareness, and social coping. - Do not individualize self-care too much
Students need time, support, safe relationships, and manageable academic demands to practice self-care. Schools and families should not treat self-care as solely the student’s responsibility. - Design mental health promotion with Filipino family life in mind
Since many Filipino students live with family, mental health programs should consider household dynamics, family expectations, financial dependence, and family support. - Create campus-family partnerships
Universities can involve families in wellness campaigns, orientation programs, and health promotion activities while still respecting student privacy and autonomy. - Support students with unhealthy or strained family environments
Not all families are health-promoting. Students from stressful, conflictual, or resource-poor households may need additional counseling, peer support, financial aid, or safe campus-based support systems.
Glossary of key terms
- Family health — The overall health-promoting capacity of the family unit, including relationships, routines, emotional processes, healthy lifestyles, resources, and external support.
- Health-promoting family — A family system that supports the health capacities and health outcomes of its members through values, routines, practices, relationships, and resources.
- Mental well-being — Positive mental health, including feeling useful, relaxed, clear-thinking, connected, able to cope, and hopeful.
- Self-care — Activities people perform to meet their own physical, psychological, and social needs.
- Self-care practice — In this study, health-conscious behaviors, nutrition and physical activity, rest and sleep, and personal and social coping practices.
- Kagalingan — A Filipino concept related to health, healing, or being well.
- Kaginhawaan — A Filipino concept of wellness, comfort, ease, or well-being; often linked to relational and family life.
- Ecocultural pathway — The way family values, routines, goals, attitudes, and practices shape the health of younger members.
- Family Health Scale–Short Form / FHS-SF — A 10-item scale used to measure family health.
- Self-Care Activities Screening Scale / SASS-14 — A 14-item scale used to measure self-care activities.
- Short Warwick–Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale / SWEMWBS — A 7-item scale used to measure positive mental well-being.
- Mediation analysis — A statistical method that tests whether one variable helps explain the relationship between another predictor and an outcome.
- Partial mediation — A pattern where the predictor affects the outcome both directly and indirectly through a mediator. Here, family health affected mental well-being directly and indirectly through self-care.
- Cross-sectional study — A study that collects data at one point in time. It can identify associations but cannot prove cause and effect.
- College mental health promotion — Programs and practices that support student mental well-being, prevent distress, and build healthier learning environments.
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