Designing an Ecological Model for Mental Health Promotion with Emphasis on the Interaction among the Individual, Family, and Community
Keywords:
Mental health, Ecological model, Family, Community, Social capital, Qualitative research, TehranAbstract
This study aimed to develop an ecological model of mental health promotion by identifying the components and interactive mechanisms operating across individual, family, and community levels. This qualitative study was conducted using an inductive content analysis approach. The participants were 24 individuals residing or working in Tehran, including psychologists, psychiatrists, family counselors, social workers, community health professionals, health-sector managers, and people with lived experience of using mental health services. Participants were recruited through purposive maximum-variation sampling. Data were collected exclusively through semi-structured interviews. Theoretical saturation was achieved after the twenty-first interview, followed by three additional interviews to confirm the stability and comprehensiveness of the categories. All interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed through systematic coding with NVivo software. Credibility, dependability, confirmability, and transferability were enhanced through member checking, peer review, maintenance of an audit trail, researcher reflexivity, and variation in participants’ professional and experiential backgrounds. Four main categories were identified: “individual psychological agency and self-regulation,” “the family as a foundation of psychological security and care,” “a supportive and opportunity-generating community,” and “inter-level mental health governance and linkage.” Sustainable mental health promotion was found to depend on the integration of mental health literacy, self-awareness, emotional regulation, adaptive coping, and help-seeking with emotionally secure family relationships, constructive communication, social capital, community participation, stigma reduction, locally accessible services, and coordination among health, education, welfare, workplace, and municipal institutions. “Ecological synergy in mental health” emerged as the central theme, indicating that no single level can independently produce sustainable mental health outcomes. Mental health should be understood as a dynamic outcome of reciprocal interactions among personal capacities, family relationships, social conditions, and service structures. The proposed model moves beyond exclusively individual and treatment-oriented approaches by emphasizing coordinated, preventive, family-centered, community-based, culturally responsive, and rights-based interventions. It may provide a conceptual foundation for developing local mental health programs, coordinating cross-sector services, identifying intervention priorities, and evaluating mental health promotion policies in metropolitan settings.
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