Family, Friends, and Romantic Partners’ Influence on Mental Health Recovery among Emerging and Middle-aged Adults with Serious Mental Illness

Abstract

Emerging adults refer to young people between the ages of 18 to 29 according to the theory of emerging adults. Scholars now recognize that emerging adults with serious mental illness (SMI) are at a distinctive developmental stage and thus their services and support needs are distinguished from children or older adults with SMI. However, evidence-based and developmentally appropriate mental health programs, particularly for emerging adults with SMI, are lacking. The purpose of this study is to explore the distinctiveness of emerging adults with SMI. Guided by the social convoy model and the multidimensional model of mental health recovery, this study compared the differences in the social relational characteristics and their influences on mental health recovery between emerging (n=149) and middle-aged adults with SMI (n=296) using the National Survey of American Life. The findings suggest that emerging adults with SMI are different from middle-aged adults with SMI in a few ways; however, they also have many similarities in terms of the social relational characteristics and their influences on mental health recovery. First, regarding the social relational characteristics of emerging adults with SMI, emerging adults with SMI had more negative interactions with family, more positive support from friends, and more negative interactions with romantic partners than middle-aged adults with SMI, though these differences in social relationships were not statistically significant after adjusting for sex, race, income level, and number of years since the onset of SMI. Second, regarding the role of social relationships in mental health recovery, the influence of family was different for emerging and middle-aged adults with SMI. Positive support from family was statistically significantly associated with the mental health recovery of emerging adults with SMI while negative interactions with family were statistically significantly associated with the mental health recovery of middle-aged adults with SMI. However, positive support from friends was statistically significantly associated with the mental health recovery of both emerging and middle-aged adults with SMI. This study has further discussed implications for theory, empirical mental health research, and social work practice. Limitations and suggestions for future research are also discussed.