Mental Health Interventions and Community Cohesion in Bangladesh: The Mediating Roles of Social Connectedness and Psychological Well-being

Abstract

Mental health interventions are now being increasingly acknowledged for their ability to enhance social relationships and community functioning as well as individual psychological functioning and well-being. But, few empirical studies describe how mental health interventions can play a role in community cohesion, especially in developing country settings. The current study aimed to explore the association between mental health interventions and community cohesion in Bangladesh and the mediation effect of psychological well-being and social connectedness. Based on an integrated psychological–relational approach, the study suggests that there are direct pathways from mental health interventions to improved psychological well-being and social connectedness/community cohesion, and important indirect pathways via psychological well-being and social connectedness. The data was gathered from 500 respondents within the country Bangladesh and analysed via partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The results show that interventions for mental health can have a profound positive impact on psychological health, social belonging and community cohesion. Social connectedness is the strongest direct predictor of community cohesion and psychological well-being has a significant impact on both social connectedness and community cohesion. Mediation analysis also shows that psychological well-being and social connectedness play a significant role in the link between mental health interventions and community cohesion. Importantly, the sequential mediation pathway from mental health interventions, to psychological well-being, to social connectedness and then to community cohesion is also statistically significant. The results of the multi-group analysis show that the structural relationships are statistically not different between gender and place of residence. The results indicate that interventions for mental health should be more than just clinically focused and should include social connectedness, as well as community participation and collective support. In Bangladesh, embedding psychological function with social mechanisms in the community could help the transition of mental health interventions to offer a wider impact on community cohesion and resilience.

Received: 2026-07-11 | Revised: 2026-09-29 | Accepted: 2026-09-30 | Published: 2026-09-30

Declarations

Ethics and Guidelines: The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. The ethical approval specifically covers the research procedures and data collection activities conducted for this study.

Consent to participate: Written informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to data collection. Consent was obtained using a standardized written form, signed by each participant before participation in the survey.

Consent to publish: The authors have provided consent to publish.

Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Data availability statement: Data will be made available on reasonable request from the corresponding author.

Funding: This research received no external funding.

Clinical Trial Number: Not Applicable.

Declaration of using generative AI: During the preparation of this work the author(s) used ChatGPT in order to correct the grammatical errors. After using this tool/service, the author(s) reviewed and edited the content as needed and take full responsibility for the content of the published article.

Author Contributions: K.S. and M.M.I.B.: Conceptualization, methodology, writing—original draft preparation, writing—review and editing. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.