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Loneliness and depression among Chinese drug users: Mediating effect of resilience and moderating effect of gender
Author(s) -
Cao Qilong,
Liu Liu
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.585
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 1520-6629
pISSN - 0090-4392
DOI - 10.1002/jcop.22262
Subject(s) - loneliness , moderation , psychology , depression (economics) , ucla loneliness scale , clinical psychology , association (psychology) , psychological resilience , psychiatry , social psychology , psychotherapist , economics , macroeconomics
This study aims to explore potential correlations between gender, loneliness, resilience, and depression simultaneously among Chinese drug users; and especially to investigate the mediating effect of resilience and the moderating effect of gender on the correlation between loneliness and depression. Participants of this study included 513 drug users (399 men and 114 women) who were under treatment in two compulsory drug treatment institutions in one Eastern Chinese city. All participants completed the UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) loneliness scale, the Zung self‐rating depression scale, and the Connor–Davidson resilience scale. A correlation matrix was constructed to analyze correlations between these three characteristics. Path analyses were performed in the PROCESS for SPSS in order to test the mediating effect of resilience on the association between loneliness and depression; while a series of hierarchical multiple regressions were conducted in SPSS 22.0 to test the moderating effect of gender on the association between loneliness and depression. Compared to male drug users, female ones reported higher average scores on loneliness and depression, which indicated that female drug users suffered severer loneliness and depression. Resilience partially mediates the link between loneliness and depression and gender acts as a moderator for the relationship between loneliness and depression.