Mediation Pattern of Proactive Coping and Social Support on Well-being and Depression

Proactive coping is a multidimensional and future-looking quality of life strategy that can predict positive outcomes and regulate distress. Recently, social support has been seen as an essential resource for effective coping with stressors. On this basis, a cross-sectional study examining a theoretical model was investigated using a path analysis. It was hypothesized that social support would be associated with proactive coping in the synergistic relationship and in relation to the positive psychological variable of well-being. Moreover, direct relationships between well-being and feelings of depression were expected. In a sample of 482 full-time university students attending public university, the results showed that social support and comparable proactive coping directly contributed to an increase in well-being. Furthermore, well-being was directly related to depression. Besides direct effects, an indirect pathway from social support to well-being was tested confirming the hypothesis that proactive coping functions as a partial mediator between social support and well-being. Generalizability of the findings was tested across gender and age performing multi-group analyses. Furthermore, practical implications, study limitations, and future research are discussed.