Abstract
PURPOSE: This study aimed to examine whether perceived parental alienation mediates the relationship between parental and adolescent depressive symptoms, and, if so, whether parents' subjective health moderates this indirect effect. METHODS: This cross-sectional study utilized secondary data from the 2021 wave of the Panel Study on Korean Children, enrolling 541 parent-child dyads. Parental depression was measured using the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale-6, a self-rated health item, the Korean version of the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale for Children, and a 6-item perceived alienation scale. Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlations, and variance inflation factor checks were conducted, followed by mediation and moderated mediation analyses using PROCESS Models 4 and 7 with 10,000 bootstraps in IBM SPSS ver. 27.0. RESULTS: Parental depression did not directly predict adolescent depression (B=.02, t=.87) but was significantly related to perceived alienation (B=.16, p<.001), which in turn predicted higher adolescent depression (B=.20, p<.001). The indirect effect of alienation was also significant (B=.039; 95% confidence interval, 0.005-0.066). Subjective health moderated the depression-alienation link (interaction B=.19, p<.001), with stronger indirect effects observed among parents with better health. CONCLUSION: Parental depression symptoms indirectly increase adolescent depression through perceived alienation, particularly when parents viewed their health positively. These results suggest that interventions targeting parental mental health and fostering open-family communication may help reduce adolescent depression.