Nan Du, Yu-Te Huang
Children of parents with depression are prone to mental health problems. Self-stigma severely impacts individuals' help-seeking behaviors and mental well-being, but the effects of parental depression on offspring's self-stigma remain unknown. This study proposed and validated a family-individual model to explain how familial and individual factors impact depression self-stigma. A survey of 1,012 Chinese individuals with depression (aged 13-30 years) was conducted from May to October 2023 to collect data. T tests and chi-square tests were used to identify differences between groups with and without parental depression. Structural equation modeling was used to validate and modify the proposed model. The group with parental depression reported significantly poorer family relationships, lower levels of parental care, and higher levels of parental overprotection. This group also reported higher self-stigma, experienced stigma, and introversion, as well as lower self-esteem, resilience, and social functioning. Six serial mediation paths linked parental depression to offspring's self-stigma through familial and individual factors. These factors had significant and positive effects on offspring's self-stigma, with indirect effects β ranging from 0.007 to 0.034. The trimmed model demonstrated a satisfactory model fit: χ²(100) = 371.48, p < .001, comparative fit index = 0.902, Tucker-Lewis index = 0.892, root-mean-square error of approximation = 0.052, standardized root-mean-square residual = 0.045. The findings underscore the complex interplay between family dynamics and individual psychological factors in shaping self-stigma. Negative family interactions (i.e., conflict, reduced parental care, and heightened parental overprotection) exacerbate low self-esteem, poor social functioning, and introversion in offspring with depression, further contributing to their internalization of stigma. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).