Objective
To investigate the predictors of depression among vocational school students, this study adopts the perspective of positive youth development and employs both variable-centered and person-centered analytical approaches.
Methods
A total of 1,075 vocational school students were recruited through convenience sampling, including 433 males (M_age = 17.48 years, SD = 0.80) and 642 females (M_age = 17.39 years, SD = 0.76). Variable-centered analyses, including chain mediation and logistic regression, were used to explore the relationships among positive traits, career future orientation, mobile phone addiction, and depression. Person-centered analyses were conducted to classify students into different groups and assess differences in depression and mobile phone addiction across these groups.
Results & Discussion
The variable-centered analysis revealed: (1) Career future orientation and mobile phone addiction serve as chain mediators in the relationship between positive traits and depression among vocational school students. Specifically, positive traits positively predict career future orientation, which in turn reduces the risk of mobile phone addiction, thereby negatively predicting depressive symptoms. (2) Logistic regression analysis showed that positive traits total score and career future orientation significantly predict depression (OR = 0.068, p < 0.001) and mobile phone addiction (OR = 0.312, p < 0.001).The person-centered analysis categorized vocational school students into five groups: low positive traits group (8.00%), high benevolence group (29.12%), moderate positive traits group (46.79%), low self-control group (6.61%), and high positive traits group (9.49%).Analysis of variance (ANOVA) results revealed: (1) For depression, the low positive traits group scored the highest, while the high positive traits group scored the lowest. Significant differences were observed between groups: low positive traits group > moderate positive traits group > high benevolence group > high positive traits group; low positive traits group > low self-control group. (2) For mobile phone addiction, the low self-control group and the low positive traits group scored the highest, while the high positive traits group scored the lowest. Significant differences were observed between groups: low positive traits group, low self-control group > moderate positive traits group > high benevolence group > high positive traits group.
Conclusions
This study found that the development level of positive traits and career future orientation can negatively predict depression and mobile phone addiction among vocational school students. These findings suggest that fostering positive traits and career future orientation in this population can effectively reduce the risks of depression and mobile phone addiction. Notably, even when other positive traits are relatively high, insufficient persistence and self-control may still lead to mobile phone addiction. This indicates the importance of fostering all aspects of positive traits rather than focusing solely on specific dimensions in the cultivation of students' positive traits.
 

Positive Traits; Depression; Future Orientation; Mobile Phone Addiction; Vocational School Students