Why Family Support Matters for Graduate Students’ Wellbeing During Crisis
Article information
Cleofas, J. V., & Oducado, R. M. F. (2023). Family relationship, mental well-being, and life satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic: A mediation study among Filipino graduate students. In V. L. Gregorio, C. M. Batan, & S. L. Blair (Eds.), Contemporary Perspectives in Family Research: “Resilience and Familism: The Dynamic Nature of Families in the Philippines” (pp. 163–182). Emerald Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1530-353520230000023010
What this study is about
Graduate students are often left out of student mental health research. Many studies focus on children, undergraduates, or medical students, but graduate students have a different life situation. They are often older. Many are working. Some are married. Some are parents. Many are balancing school, work, and family responsibilities at the same time.
This chapter asks: How did family relationships shape graduate students’ mental well-being and life satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic?
The focus is on Filipino graduate students who were living with family members during the second year of the pandemic. This matters because COVID-19 moved many parts of life into the home: online classes, work-from-home arrangements, caregiving, household responsibilities, and everyday family interaction. The home became a classroom, workplace, care space, and emotional environment all at once.
Why family relationships matter
The chapter uses family systems theory, which sees the family as an interconnected system. What happens in one part of the family affects other members. A graduate student’s mental health is therefore not only an individual issue. It may also be shaped by the quality of family support, communication, and conflict at home.
The study looks at three domains of family relationship:
- Cohesion — how much family members support each other, get along, and feel together.
- Expressiveness — how openly family members talk about feelings, concerns, and personal problems.
- Conflict — how much family members argue, get angry, or become hostile toward one another.
The chapter also connects this to the Filipino idea of kaginhawaan, or wellness/well-being, where good family relations are central to a good life.
What the researchers did
This was a quantitative cross-sectional mediation study. The participants were 337 graduate students from a state university in Western Visayas, Philippines. All participants were enrolled in master’s or doctoral programs and were living with family members during the pandemic.
The researchers measured:
- family relationships using the Brief Family Relationship Scale;
- mental well-being using the Short Warwick–Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale;
- life satisfaction using the Satisfaction with Life Scale; and
- demographic factors such as age, sex assigned at birth, marital status, income status, and work status.
The conceptual model is shown in Figure 10.1 on page 168. It presents mental well-being as a possible mediator between family relationship domains and life satisfaction. In everyday language, the model asks: Do good family relationships improve life satisfaction partly because they improve mental well-being first?
What the study found
1) Graduate students reported generally positive family relationships
According to Table 10.1 on page 171, the graduate students reported:
- high family cohesion,
- high family expressiveness,
- low family conflict,
- high mental well-being, and
- moderate life satisfaction.
This is an important finding because early pandemic research often emphasized family stress, disruption, and crisis. In this study, collected during the second year of the pandemic, many families may have already developed routines for managing home confinement, work, online learning, and care responsibilities.
2) Demographic factors shaped family relationship perceptions
The study found that family relationships were not experienced the same way by everyone.
According to Table 10.2 on page 172:
- male respondents reported higher family cohesion than female respondents;
- married respondents reported higher cohesion and expressiveness than single respondents;
- older respondents reported higher expressiveness and lower conflict.
The authors suggest that home confinement may have increased time for family interaction, especially for groups who might previously have spent more time outside the home. For married graduate students, lockdown may have created more opportunities to strengthen spousal and family routines. For younger students, lower expressiveness and higher conflict may reflect age-based family hierarchies, where younger members may have less voice at home.
3) Cohesion and expressiveness predicted better mental well-being
The study found that family cohesion and family expressiveness significantly predicted better mental well-being. In plain language: graduate students who felt supported by family and who could communicate openly at home tended to report better mental well-being.
This makes sense. During a crisis, family support can help people feel less alone, more capable of coping, and more emotionally secure. Open communication may also help students talk about stress, workload, fear, and uncertainty before these become overwhelming.
4) Cohesion and expressiveness predicted higher life satisfaction
The study also found that cohesion and expressiveness had significant positive relationships with life satisfaction. Students who reported closer and more communicative families also tended to feel more satisfied with life overall.
This is especially meaningful for graduate students, whose life satisfaction may be shaped by overlapping demands: coursework, thesis or dissertation progress, work responsibilities, financial concerns, family roles, and pandemic uncertainty.
5) Mental well-being strongly predicted life satisfaction
Mental well-being was a strong positive predictor of life satisfaction. This means that students who felt more optimistic, useful, relaxed, able to deal with problems, clear-thinking, socially connected, and decisive also felt more satisfied with life.
This finding supports a simple but important point: life satisfaction is not only about external achievements. It is also shaped by how mentally well people feel while navigating their responsibilities.
6) Mental well-being explained how family relationships affect life satisfaction
The mediation findings are the chapter’s main contribution.
According to Table 10.4 on page 174:
- Mental well-being partially mediated the relationship between family cohesion and life satisfaction.
- Mental well-being fully mediated the relationship between family expressiveness and life satisfaction.
In simple terms:
Family cohesion → better mental well-being → higher life satisfaction.
For cohesion, the effect was partial, meaning family closeness improved life satisfaction both directly and through mental well-being.
For expressiveness, the effect was full, meaning open family communication improved life satisfaction mainly because it first improved mental well-being.
This is a powerful insight: being able to talk openly at home may matter because it protects or strengthens mental health, and that improved mental health then supports a better evaluation of life.
7) Family conflict did not significantly predict mental well-being or life satisfaction in the adjusted model
Contrary to some earlier studies, family conflict did not significantly predict mental well-being or life satisfaction after adjustment. The authors suggest this may be because respondents generally reported low levels of family conflict. Positive family factors such as cohesion and expressiveness may also have been more influential in this sample.
This does not mean family conflict is unimportant. It means that in this particular sample, the protective effects of supportive and expressive family relationships were more evident.
Bottom line
This chapter shows that family remains central to Filipino graduate students’ well-being, especially during crisis. Supportive and communicative families can help graduate students sustain mental well-being, and mental well-being can translate these family resources into greater life satisfaction.
The study also reminds us that graduate students are not just “students.” They are workers, spouses, parents, children, caregivers, and family members whose academic lives are deeply entangled with home life.
Policy/practice recommendations
- Include families in graduate student mental health support
Graduate schools can design optional family-inclusive activities, psychoeducation sessions, or “family day” programs that help family members understand graduate school demands. - Normalize open communication about stress and mental health at home
The finding on expressiveness suggests that families should be encouraged to talk openly about stress, negative feelings, workload, and psychological concerns without shame. - Monitor graduate students’ mental well-being regularly
Universities should not assume graduate students are automatically resilient because they are older. Guidance offices and graduate programs can periodically screen for mental well-being and life satisfaction. - Support students with multiple roles
Graduate students who are also workers, spouses, parents, or caregivers need flexible deadlines, advising support, and realistic workload expectations. - Use a family systems approach in counseling
For graduate students experiencing distress, counselors may explore family cohesion, communication patterns, support routines, and household conflict—not only individual coping. - Create post-pandemic research on family transitions
Future studies should examine how families move from lockdown routines to post-lockdown life, and how that transition affects students’ mental health and educational outcomes.
Glossary of key terms
- Family systems theory — A perspective that understands the family as an interconnected system where one member’s experiences and behaviors affect others.
- Family relationship — The quality of family functioning, measured here through cohesion, expressiveness, and conflict.
- Family cohesion — The extent to which family members support one another, get along, and feel a sense of togetherness.
- Family expressiveness — The extent to which family members can openly discuss feelings, concerns, and personal problems.
- Family conflict — The extent to which family members argue, become angry, or experience hostility.
- Mental well-being — Positive mental health, including optimism, usefulness, relaxation, problem-solving ability, clear thinking, social connection, and decision-making.
- Life satisfaction — A person’s overall judgment of how satisfied they are with their life.
- Mediation analysis — A statistical approach that tests whether one variable helps explain the relationship between two others. Here, mental well-being explains how family relationships affect life satisfaction.
- Partial mediation — A mediation pattern where the predictor affects the outcome both directly and indirectly through a mediator.
- Full mediation — A mediation pattern where the predictor affects the outcome mainly through the mediator.
- Brief Family Relationship Scale / BFRS — A tool that measures cohesion, expressiveness, and conflict in the family.
- SWEMWBS — Short Warwick–Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale, a tool for measuring positive mental well-being.
- SWLS — Satisfaction with Life Scale, a tool for measuring overall life satisfaction.
- Kaginhawaan — A Filipino concept of wellness or well-being, where good family relationships are central to a good life.
- Cross-sectional study — A study that collects data at one point in time. It can identify associations but cannot prove cause and effect.
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