The influence of indigenous documentary narratives on cultural resilience and mental health awareness

Indigenous documentary narratives may provide culturally grounded contexts for understanding identity, resilience and mental health, yet empirical evidence linking narrative engagement with these interconnected outcomes remains limited, particularly within Indigenous communities in China. This cross-sectional mixed-methods observational study examined associations among narrative engagement, perceived cultural authenticity, cultural identification, cultural resilience, mental health awareness, stigma and help-seeking attitudes among 480 adults from ethnic minority communities in Yunnan and Hunan Provinces, China, with 36 participants contributing qualitative data. After a standardized viewing session involving four documentaries representing Yi, Miao, Bai and Tujia/Miao narratives, participants completed culturally adapted measures of narrative engagement and cultural and mental-health constructs. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the final 60-item, six-factor measurement model (χ 2(1,695) = 3,284.15, χ 2/df = 1.937, CFI = 0.941, TLI = 0.938, RMSEA = 0.044, 95% CI [0.042, 0.046], SRMR = 0.048), with satisfactory reliability and convergent validity. Narrative engagement was positively associated with cultural resilience (r = 0.51), mental health awareness (r = 0.44), and help-seeking attitudes, while showing an inverse association with mental health stigma (r = -0.35; all p