Long-term effects of left-behind experience on adult depression: Social trust as mediating factor

Abstract

The left-behind experience that occurred in childhood has a significantly negative effect on adult psychological depression, in which preschool left-behind experience played the most critical role. Social trust is the mediating factor associated with left-behind experience and psychological depression. To mitigate the long-term effects of the left-behind experience on psychological depression, parents need to be prudent about the decision-making of migration in the preschool stage of their children. and subsequent policies should strengthen social work targeting vulnerable youth groups especially those with left-behind experience at an early age in terms of their psychological depression.