The Effect of Delinquent Experience on Self-injury Behavior in Adolescents: Moderated Mediating Effect of Negative Self-Perception by Depression

The purpose of this study is to determine whether there is a moderated mediating effect of negative self-perception due to depression in the process in which adolescents' delinquent experience affects self-harm behavior. The subjects of the study were 6,689 elementary, middle, and high school students from the Korea Youth Policy Institute's ‘2021 Mental Health Survey of Teenagers’ data, and the adjusted mediation effect was verified using the Macro Process for SPSS program. The research results are as follows. First, as a result of examining the mediating effect of negative self-perception in the relationship between delinquency experience and self-harm behavior, it was confirmed that negative self-perception has a mediating effect in the process of delinquency experience influencing self-harm behavior. As a result of testing the significance of the indirect effect of negative self-perception through bootstrapping analysis, the mediating effect was statistically significant. Second, as a result of conducting a moderating effect analysis to determine whether depression plays a moderating role in the relationship between negative self-awareness, which is a mediating variable, and self-harming behavior, which is a dependent variable, it was found that depression has a moderating effect on the relationship between negative self-awareness and self-harming behavior, which is a dependent variable. Third, as a result of analyzing the moderated mediating effect of negative self-perception due to depression in the process of adolescents' delinquent experience influencing self-harm behavior, the results showed that negative self-perception due to depression was found in the process of adolescent delinquent experience influencing self-harm behavior. The moderated mediation effect of was found to be significant. Based on these results, as a way to reduce self-injurious behavior among adolescents, interest in adolescents with delinquent experience, development of various programs, expansion of self-esteem improvement programs to lower negative self-perception, and various efforts to reduce adolescent depression are needed.