Stressful life events and non-suicidal self-injury among college students: chain mediating effect analysis of resilience and emotion dysregulation
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) behavior represents a worrisome mental health concern across the world, with stressful life events emerging as a critical proximal predictor of NSSI behavior among college students. The high prevalence and severe implications of NSSI behavior necessitate a thorough investigation of the underlying mechanisms linking stressful life events to such maladaptive behavior among this vulnerable population. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to delineate the psychological pathways through which stressful life events contribute to NSSI behaviors among college students, with a focus on the sequential mediating roles of resilience and emotion dysregulation. METHODS: A cross-sectional convenience sample of 1,392 college students from Hunan Province, China, was recruited between September and December 2023. Data were collected via a structured online questionnaire, including the Ottawa Self-Injury Inventory (OSI), the Adolescent Self-Rating Life Events Checklist (ASLEC), the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), and the Resilience Scale for Chinese Adolescents (RSCA). Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation analyses, hierarchical multiple regression analyses, and sequential mediation analysis were performed to evaluate the hypothesized relationships. RESULTS: The prevalence of NSSI behavior was 7.54% (105/1392), lower than reported in Western populations but consistent with some regional Chinese estimates. Between-group comparisons revealed that the NSSI group demonstrated elevated total scores and scores across all dimensions on the ASLEC (p < 0.01) and DERS (p < 0.01), while exhibiting lower total scores and scores across all dimensions on the RSCA (p < 0.01). Correlation analysis indicated that NSSI behaviors were positively correlated with stressful life events (r = 0.408, p < 0.01) and emotion dysregulation (r = 0.430, p < 0.01), while negatively correlated with resilience (r = -0.592, p < 0.01). Sequential mediation analysis revealed that resilience and emotion dysregulation jointly mediated the effect of stressful life events on NSSI behaviors, highlighting a nuanced interplay of protective and vulnerability factors. CONCLUSION: These findings elucidate the intricate chain mediating effects of resilience and emotion dysregulation in the relationship between stressful life events and NSSI behaviors among college students. Given the cross-sectional design, causal inferences are constrained. Nonetheless, this study further provides valuable insights for the development and refinement of effective prevention strategies and intervention programs aimed at reducing NSSI risk.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".