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A Moderated Mediation Model of the Relationship Between Multidimensional Poverty and Psychological Consequences of Left-Behind Children

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Abstract

The relationship between poverty and children’s mental health has been investigated in previous studies, but the mediating and moderating effects underlying the associations remained unclear. From a multidimensional perspective in mainland China, the present study aims to explore the effects of multidimensional poverty on left-behind children’s psychological well-being and distress and the mediating role of social support, as well as the moderating effect of coping strategy. Using a multistage cluster random sampling, the data was collected in Jiangsu Province in China. The sample consisted of 626 left-behind children (45.4% girls) aged 12–18 years old (M = 14.94 years, SD = 1.57). Structural equation modeling (SEM) with Amos 26.0 was used to test the mediating and moderating effects. The results demonstrated that multidimensional poverty had a direct effect on psychological well-being and distress of left-behind children. In addition, the present study also revealed the partial mediating role of social support in the relationship between poverty and its psychological consequences. However, the coping strategy was only found significantly moderate the correlation between multidimensional poverty and left-behind children’s psychological well-being. The present study expanded current knowledge and deepened our understanding of the underlying mechanisms of how multidimensional poverty affected left-behind children’s psychological development and shed light on practical implications for targeted social policies and social work interventions towards impoverished left-behind children.

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Data Availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This study has been supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.: 71904080) and the Social Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (Grant No.: 19JYC005).

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  1. School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China

    Chunkai Li & Xinwen Zhang

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Li, C., Zhang, X. A Moderated Mediation Model of the Relationship Between Multidimensional Poverty and Psychological Consequences of Left-Behind Children. Int J Ment Health Addiction (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-023-01117-8

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