Why Feeling Connected Matters: Resilience and Mental Well-being Among Filipino Emerging Adults at Risk for Depression
Article information
Cleofas, J. V. (2025). Personal and interpersonal resilience as predictors of mental well-being among emerging adults at risk for depression: the mediating role of interconnectedness. Vulnerable Children and Youth Studies, 20(4), 609–626. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450128.2025.2459687
What this study is about
Emerging adulthood is the life stage between adolescence and established adulthood, often covering ages 18 to 29. It is a time when young people explore identity, deepen relationships, make career plans, pursue higher education, and try to become more independent. But this stage can also feel unstable. Many young people feel “in-between”: no longer teenagers, but not yet fully settled into adult life.
This study asks: What helps Filipino emerging adults at risk for depression experience better mental well-being?
The paper focuses on three sources of resilience:
- Personal resilience — the ability to rely on oneself, solve problems, and pursue goals.
- Family-based resilience — the ability to cope and move forward with support from family.
- Friend-based resilience — the ability to cope and move forward with support from friends.
The study also examines interconnectedness, or the sense that people, society, relationships, emotions, and the wider world are linked together. The main question is whether interconnectedness helps explain how resilience improves mental well-being.
Why this matters
Depression often becomes especially common during emerging adulthood. This is the time when many people are making difficult transitions: entering college, looking for work, building relationships, moving away from home, dealing with family expectations, and imagining their adult future. These pressures can become even heavier for young people already experiencing depressive symptoms.
Many mental health discussions focus on reducing symptoms. This study takes a promotive approach. It asks what helps young adults move toward positive mental health, not only away from distress.
Here, mental well-being means feeling mentally functional and positively oriented: thinking clearly, feeling useful, coping with problems, connecting with others, and maintaining some hope for the future.
The theoretical lens: Transitions Theory
The study uses Transitions Theory by Afaf Meleis. This theory helps explain how people move through major life changes. In this study, emerging adulthood is treated as a developmental transition, while depression risk is treated as a health-related transition.
Using this framework:
- Personal and interpersonal resilience are treated as transition facilitators. They help people move through difficult life changes.
- Interconnectedness is treated as a process indicator. It shows how well people are engaging with connection and meaning during the transition.
- Mental well-being is treated as an outcome indicator. It represents a desirable outcome of navigating the transition.
The hypothesized model in Figure 1 on page 6 shows this clearly. Personal resilience, family resilience, and friend resilience are expected to predict interconnectedness and mental well-being. Interconnectedness is positioned as the bridge linking resilience to mental well-being.
What the researcher did
This was a cross-sectional mediation study using data from a larger online survey of emerging adults in the Greater Manila Area. The full survey had 1,148 valid respondents, but this article focused only on those who scored at risk for depression based on the depression component of the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale. This produced a final sample of 920 emerging adults at risk for depression.
The sample selection process is shown in Figure 2 on page 7: 1,251 individuals accessed the online form; 1,148 valid respondents met the age and location criteria; 228 did not meet the depression-risk cutoff; and 920 were included in the final analysis.
The study measured:
- personal resilience, using the self domain of the Multicultural Mastery Scale;
- family resilience, using the family domain of the same scale;
- friend resilience, using the friends domain;
- interconnectedness, using the Interconnectedness Scale;
- mental well-being, using the Short Warwick–Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale; and
- depression risk, using the depression domain of the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale.
What the study found
1) Personal resilience was high, but family and friend resilience were moderate
According to Table 1 on page 10, respondents reported high personal resilience. This means many respondents felt some sense of agency, problem-solving capacity, and ability to face difficulties on their own.
However, resilience from family and friends was only at a moderate level. This is important. Emerging adults may be trying to become independent, but they still need support from family and peers. When these supports are only moderate, young people at risk for depression may not be getting the full relational protection they need.
2) Mental well-being was only near the lower end of the moderate range
The average mental well-being score was close to the lower limit of the moderate range. This fits the sample: these were not all clinically diagnosed with depression, but they were at risk based on depressive symptoms.
This finding reminds us that young adults at risk for depression may still have some positive mental health resources, but these resources may be fragile. They may be functioning, but not flourishing.
3) All three forms of resilience were linked to mental well-being
Personal resilience, family resilience, and friend resilience were all positively correlated with mental well-being. In plain language: young adults who felt more capable on their own, more supported by family, and more supported by friends also reported better mental well-being.
This is one of the central findings of the study. Resilience is not only an individual trait. It can come from the self, but also from relationships.
4) All three forms of resilience were linked to interconnectedness
The study also found that personal, family, and friend resilience were positively associated with interconnectedness. This means that young people who had stronger sources of resilience were also more likely to feel connected to others and to the wider world.
This matters because depression can often narrow a person’s world. It can make people feel isolated, disconnected, or trapped inside their own suffering. Resilience may help widen that world again by strengthening the sense that one belongs to something larger than the self.
5) Interconnectedness predicted better mental well-being
Interconnectedness was also positively associated with mental well-being. Respondents who felt more connected to others, society, and the world tended to report better mental well-being.
This is a key contribution of the study. It suggests that mental health promotion should not only teach coping skills. It should also help young people feel connected: to family, friends, community, nature, society, and meaningful collective life.
6) Interconnectedness partly explained the effect of resilience
The main finding is the mediation result.
Interconnectedness partially mediated the relationships between all three sources of resilience and mental well-being. Specifically, interconnectedness explained:
- 29.58% of the relationship between personal resilience and mental well-being;
- 16.47% of the relationship between family resilience and mental well-being; and
- 15.99% of the relationship between friend resilience and mental well-being.
In simple terms:
Personal resilience → stronger interconnectedness → better mental well-being.
Family resilience → stronger interconnectedness → better mental well-being.
Friend resilience → stronger interconnectedness → better mental well-being.
But because the mediation was partial, resilience still had direct effects on mental well-being. This means resilience helps mental well-being both through interconnectedness and through other pathways, such as confidence, coping, emotional regulation, belonging, social support, and problem-solving.
7) Personal resilience was the strongest predictor
Among the three sources of resilience, personal resilience was the strongest predictor of both interconnectedness and mental well-being.
This makes sense in emerging adulthood. This life stage often requires autonomy, self-direction, and identity formation. Young adults are expected to make decisions, solve problems, and imagine future selves. For those at risk for depression, personal agency may be especially important.
But this should not be misunderstood. The study does not say that young people should simply “be resilient” on their own. It shows that personal resilience matters, but so do family, friends, and interconnectedness.
8) The model explained meaningful variation
The mediation model explained 30.6% of the variance in interconnectedness and 29.1% of the variance in mental well-being.
This means the model captured a meaningful part of what supports mental well-being among emerging adults at risk for depression. It does not explain everything, but it gives a useful framework for designing mental health programs.
Bottom line
This study shows that mental well-being among Filipino emerging adults at risk for depression is supported by multiple sources of resilience. Young people benefit from personal agency, family support, and friend support. But these resources may become even more powerful when they help young people feel interconnected: connected to others, to society, to the environment, and to a larger shared world.
The key message is this: mental health promotion should build both resilience and connection.
Policy/practice recommendations
- Strengthen personal resilience among emerging adults
Mental health programs can teach problem-solving, goal-setting, emotional regulation, self-efficacy, and future planning. - Support family-based mental health promotion
Families remain important even during emerging adulthood. Programs can help families communicate better, provide emotional support, and understand depression risk without blame. - Build peer support groups
Friend-based resilience matters. Schools, workplaces, and community organizations can create safe peer spaces where emerging adults can talk, listen, and support one another. - Make interconnectedness a mental health goal
Programs should help young adults feel connected to people, communities, nature, society, and meaningful collective life—not only teach individual coping. - Use culturally grounded concepts of connection
In the Filipino context, ideas such as bayanihan and pakikipagkapwa can help frame mental health promotion around shared humanity, mutual support, and community care. - Screen for depression risk while promoting positive mental health
Young adults at risk for depression need more than symptom monitoring. They also need activities that build mental well-being, belonging, agency, and hope. - Design developmentally appropriate programs
Emerging adults need support that recognizes their life stage: identity exploration, independence, career uncertainty, relationships, family negotiation, and future-building.
Glossary of key terms
- Emerging adulthood — The life stage from roughly 18 to 29 years old, marked by identity exploration, independence-building, relationship formation, and future planning.
- Depression risk — A level of depressive symptoms suggesting that a person may be vulnerable to depression, even if they do not have a formal clinical diagnosis.
- Mental well-being — Positive mental health, including clear thinking, coping, optimism, usefulness, connection, and emotional functioning.
- Resilience — Positive internal or external resources that help people manage stress, adversity, and risk.
- Personal resilience — Resilience sourced from the self, such as agency, problem-solving, confidence, and ability to face difficulties.
- Interpersonal resilience — Resilience sourced from relationships with others.
- Family resilience — The ability to cope, solve problems, and pursue goals with support from family members.
- Friend resilience — The ability to cope, solve problems, and pursue goals with support from friends or peers.
- Interconnectedness — The sense that people, relationships, society, emotions, and the physical world are linked together.
- Transitions Theory — A theory by Afaf Meleis explaining how people move through life, health, and developmental changes.
- Transition facilitator — A condition that helps a person move through a transition successfully. In this study, resilience functions as a transition facilitator.
- Process indicator — A sign of how a person is moving through a transition. In this study, interconnectedness functions as a process indicator.
- Outcome indicator — A desired result of a transition. In this study, mental well-being is the outcome indicator.
- Mediation analysis — A statistical method that tests whether one variable helps explain the relationship between a predictor and an outcome.
- Partial mediation — A pattern where the predictor affects the outcome both directly and indirectly through a mediator.
- Multicultural Mastery Scale / MMS — A scale used to measure personal resilience and interpersonal resilience from family and friends.
- Interconnectedness Scale — A scale used to measure awareness and appreciation of the interconnected nature of the world.
- SWEMWBS — Short Warwick–Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale, used to measure positive mental well-being.
- K10-Dep — The depression component of the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale, used here to identify respondents at risk for depression.
- Bayanihan — A Filipino value referring to mutual help, community spirit, and collective support.
- Pakikipagkapwa — A Filipino relational value emphasizing shared humanity and connection with others.
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