Introduction: The dual-factor model underscores assessing adolescent mental health with both negative and positive indicators. The World Health Organization calls for strengthening adolescents' abilities to cope with mental-health risks and for enhanced interventions; building on this guidance, we posit that cultivating positive psychological resources is crucial and that schools are promising settings to implement scalable supports.
Purpose: To identify mental-health profiles across school stages and compare their network structures.
Method: Using a provincial sample of elementary, middle, and high school students from China, we conducted latent profile analysis (LPA) on three negative indicators—loneliness, depression, smartphone addiction—and eight positive indicators—meaning in life, search for meaning, cognition, emotion, willpower, self-regulation, prosociality, transcendence. Network comparison analysis assessed structural differences across profiles.
Results: Three profiles emerged in elementary (vulnerable, troubled, complete health), three in middle school, and four in high school, with an additional "symptomatic but content" profile. Significant network differences appeared only in elementary students: in the complete-health group, positive indicators were tightly connected and strongly negatively associated with negative indicators. In contrast, vulnerable and troubled groups showed looser positive connections and weaker negative links. Interestingly, cognition had high strength in the complete-health group, while prosocial behavior and transcendence were notably stronger in the vulnerable and troubled groups than in the complete-health group. Depression was a central node across profiles. In middle school, cognition and willpower showed particularly high strength and centrality in the complete-health group.
Conclusions: Elementary school appears to be a critical window for structuring positive mental-health systems. Stage-specific supports are warranted—universal programs in elementary years and layered/selective supports thereafter. Strengthening positive psychological resources (e.g., meaning, self-regulation, prosociality) should stand alongside symptom reduction to foster resilience and flourishing.