Childhood Trauma and Suicide: The Mediating Effect of Stress and Sleep

Ran Wu; Hong Zhu; Meng-Yang Wu; Guang-Hai Wang; Chun-Lei Jiang

doi:10.3390/ijerph19148493

Childhood Trauma and Suicide: The Mediating Effect of Stress and Sleep

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Jul 12;19(14):8493. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19148493.

Authors

Ran Wu^{1

2}, Hong Zhu¹, Meng-Yang Wu¹, Guang-Hai Wang³, Chun-Lei Jiang²

Affiliations

¹ Counseling and Psychological Services Center, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China.
² Department of Stress Medicine, Faculty of Psychology, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China.
³ Pediatric Translational Medicine Institution, Shanghai Children's Medical Center, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200127, China.

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between suicide risk, perceived stress, and sleep quality through a structural equation modeling approach. This study used convenience sampling to survey 780 undergraduate and graduate students aged 18-30 years. Students were invited to participate in the online questionnaires, which included the Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation, the Suicidal Behaviors Questionnaire-Revised, the Perceived Stress Scale, the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form, and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. The results showed that suicide ideation and suicidal behavior were positively correlated with childhood trauma, stress, and sleep. A well-fitted structural equation model (χ² = 1.52, df = 1, χ²/df = 1.52, RMSEA = 0.03, CFI = 1.00, NFI = 1.00) was constructed in this study. The hierarchical regression test showed significance in all the path coefficients of the model. The total effect of emotional abuse on suicide behaviors was 49.5%. The mediating effects accounted for 73.7% of the total effects of emotional abuse on suicidal behaviors. The results demonstrate efforts targeting stress and poor sleep might mitigate the risk of suicidal behaviors among individuals with early emotional abuse experiences.

Keywords: childhood emotional abuse; childhood trauma; sleep; stress; structural equation model; suicide.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adverse Childhood Experiences*
Humans
Risk Factors
Sleep
Students / psychology
Suicidal Ideation
Surveys and Questionnaires

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [32170931, 31871171] and the National Social Science Foundation of China [21BTY094].