Social support and depressive symptoms: exploring stigma and self-efficacy in a moderated mediation model

Background: Although some psychological processes, such as stigma and self-efficacy, affect the complicated relationship between social support and depressive symptoms, few studies explored a similar psychological mechanism among individuals with substance use disorders (SUDs). Hence, this research investigates the mediating effects of stigma and the moderating effects of self-efficacy among the psychological mechanism that social support affects depressive symptoms.

Methods: The study included 1040 Chinese participants with SUDs and completed a series of self-report questionnaires. R software was used to organize and clean up data sets and analyze mediation and moderation effects.

Results: The result showed that stigma partially mediated depressive symptoms, while self-efficacy moderated this relationship. More specifically, less social support increased depression symptoms by bringing about higher stigma. Besides, subjects with higher self-efficacy are less susceptible to stigma and therefore have mild depressive symptoms. Furthermore, clinical and theoretical implications are discussed in our study.

Conclusions: Chinese SUDs patients' depressive symptoms were indirectly affected by perceived social support via stigma and less affected by stigma with improved self-efficacy. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.