Distress Intolerance Mediates the Relationship between Child Maltreatment and Nonsuicidal Self-Injury among Chinese Adolescents: A Three-Wave Longitudinal Study

Kang, Nan; Jiang, Yongqiang; Ren, Yaxuan; Gong, Tieying; Liu, Xiaoliu; Leung, Freedom; You, Jianing

doi:10.1007/s10964-018-0877-7

Empirical Research
Published: 25 June 2018

Distress Intolerance Mediates the Relationship between Child Maltreatment and Nonsuicidal Self-Injury among Chinese Adolescents: A Three-Wave Longitudinal Study

Nan Kang¹,
Yongqiang Jiang²,
Yaxuan Ren¹,
Tieying Gong¹,
Xiaoliu Liu³,
Freedom Leung³ &
Jianing You ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1092-419X¹

Journal of Youth and Adolescence volume 47, pages 2220–2230 (2018)Cite this article

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Abstract

Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a serious public health concern among adolescents. Identifying risk factors of NSSI is important to effectively prevent or reduce such behavior. Child maltreatment is one of the most widely recognized risk factors for NSSI. How child maltreatment and NSSI is related, however, is still unclear. The present study tested the temporal relationship between physical and emotional abuse and NSSI, with distress intolerance as the potential mediator. Potential gender differences on these associations were also tested. We assessed all study variables among 2259 Chinese adolescents (53.8% females; M_age = 15.11 years, SD = 1.57) for three times at 6-month intervals. The results showed that distress intolerance only mediated the relationship between emotional abuse and NSSI, but not between physical abuse and NSSI. In addition, this mediation effect of distress intolerance was significant only for females. The findings of this study can help researchers and practitioners understand pathways by which child maltreatment impacts adolescent NSSI. Implications for preventions and interventions of NSSI were discussed.

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Notes

The differences in NSSI frequency across the six schools were non-significant at Wave 1 (F [5, 2259] = .59, p > .05), but were significant at Wave 2 (F [5, 2259] = 4.98, p < .001) and Wave 3 (F [5, 2259] = 5.19, p < .001).
The model using listwise deletion also demonstrated an acceptable fit, χ²(N = 2210) = 581.37, df =, p < .001, CFI = .98, TLI = .97, SRMR = .02, and RMSEA = .06. The significance pattern of the individual paths in the model using listwise deletion was the same as that in the model using full information maximum-likelihood for missing data. Thus, we reported only the results of the mean substitution model. Interested readers may contact the correspondence author for the results of the listwise deletion model.
The multi-group analyses using listwise deletion for dealing with missing data yielded the same pattern of results. Thus, we did not present the results of the listwise deletion analyses. Interested readers may contact the correspondence author for these results.

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Authors’ Contributions

N.K. conceived of the study, participated in its design and coordination and drafted the manuscript; Y.J. participated in the design of the study, performed the measurement, and drafted the manuscript; Y.R. participated in data collection and prepared the initial draft of introduction and discussion; T.G. performed the measurement, conducted statistical analyses, and interpreation of data; X.L. participated in the review of the literature and revised the manuscript; F.L. participated in the design of the study and provided critical revisons of the manuscript; J.Y. participated in its design and coordination and helped to draft the manuscript. All authors contributed to the writing of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Funding

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 31771228), National Social Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 14ZDB159), Major Projects of the Humanities and Social Science Research Base of Ministry of Education (17JJD190001 and 16JJD190001), Research Center for Crisis Intervention and Psychological Service of Guangdong Province, South China Normal University, and the base of psychological services and counseling for “Happiness” in Guangzhou. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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Center for Studies of Psychological Application, Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science and School of Psychology, South China Normal University, 510631, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China
Nan Kang, Yaxuan Ren, Tieying Gong & Jianing You
School of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, 100875, Beijing, People’s Republic of China
Yongqiang Jiang
Department of Psychology, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China
Xiaoliu Liu & Freedom Leung

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Nan Kang
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Yongqiang Jiang
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Yaxuan Ren
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Tieying Gong
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Xiaoliu Liu
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Freedom Leung
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Jianing You
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Correspondence to Jianing You.

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All testing materials and the procedures were approved by the ethical board of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the participating schools’ authorities.

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Kang, N., Jiang, Y., Ren, Y. et al. Distress Intolerance Mediates the Relationship between Child Maltreatment and Nonsuicidal Self-Injury among Chinese Adolescents: A Three-Wave Longitudinal Study. J Youth Adolescence 47, 2220–2230 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-018-0877-7

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Received: 15 February 2018
Accepted: 26 May 2018
Published: 25 June 2018
Issue Date: October 2018
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-018-0877-7

Keywords

Nonsuicidal self-injury
Child maltreatment
Distress intolerance
Emotional abuse
Physical abuse