Relationship between cohesion, social support, psychological resilience and depression among military cadets

Objective To explore relationship between group cohesion, social support, psychological resilience and depression of military cadets.

Methods Totally 418 cadets of an armed police academy were investigated with the force cohesion scale, perceived social support scale, psychological resilience scale and depression scale. The scores of each scale were recorded, Pearson correlation analysis was used to test the correlation between variables, and SPSS 22.0 combined with Hayes(2013)macro method were used to test the intermediary effect between variables.

Results The average scores of cohesion, social support, psychological resilience and depression of 418 subjects were (3.49±0.57), (5.62±0.93), (3.73±0.46), and (1.63±0.57), respectively. The scores of unit cohesion, social support and resilience all had significant negative correlation with depression (r=-0.45, -0.39, -0.43, P < 0.01). The indirect effect of social support on cohesion and depression was 0.06. The indirect effect of psychological resilience on cohesion and depression was 0.06. Unit cohesion affected depression through the chain mediating roles of social support and resilience and the indirect effect was 0.03.

Conclusion These finding contributed to understand the complex mechanism between unit cohesion and depression. Social support and psychological resilience may be crucial factors in the link of unit cohesion and depression.