The contribution of financial well-being, social support, and trait emotional intelligence on psychological distress

Objectives While financial deprivation, social isolation, and low emotional intelligence (EI) have been separately identified as important predictors of mental illness, no research has assessed the contribution of these factors together in understanding early markers of severe psychological distress. This information can have key implications for the development of comprehensive interventions and psychological treatment programmes. This study investigated the shared and unique contribution of financial well-being, social support, and trait EI on different types of psychological distress. Design A total of 309 patients seeking psychological treatment at an outpatient mental health clinic in the United States provided consent to participate in this study. Patients responded to online questionnaires corresponding to symptomatology, demographic characteristics, and psychometric assessments. Methods Hierarchical linear regressions identified the common and unique role of each set of variables in predicting nine different symptom clusters of psychological distress. Results Financial well-being, social support, and trait EI were negatively related to the majority of symptom clusters, together explaining between 20% and 53% of the variance. Whereas financial well-being and social support uniquely captured a significant amount of the variance in all outcomes, trait EI, most notably the well-being and self-control dimensions, captured the most. Conclusions The results highlight the importance of all factors in understanding variations in mental health among help-seeking urban individuals. Furthermore, the results identify well-being and self-control as emotional facets to consider in therapeutic programmes in as much as to mitigate the risk of severe psychological distress within this population. Practitioner points Together, financial well-being, social support, and trait emotional intelligence (EI) can help prevent psychological distress in help-seeking urban individuals. Perceived social support and social contact differentially contributed to improved symptoms of psychological distress. Studies should examine the impact of targeting well-being and self-control in psychological treatment. The correlational nature of this study highlights the need to replicate findings via experimental or longitudinal designs.