Negative life events and non-suicidal self-injury in Chinese college students: A chain mediation model of self-concealment and maladaptive emotion regulation

To investigate the mechanisms through which negative life events, self-concealment, and maladaptive emotion regulation influence non-suicidal self-injurious behavior among Chinese college students. A total of 655 college students were surveyed using the Adolescents Self-Harm Scale (ASHS), Self-Concealment Scale (SCS), the Adolescent self-rating life events checklist (ASLEC), and Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ). The findings revealed that: (1) negative life events exhibited a significant positive correlation with non-suicidal self-injurious behavior; (2) maladaptive emotion regulation served as mediators in the relationship between negative life events and non-suicidal self-injurious behavior; and (3) both self-concealment and maladaptive emotion regulation functioned as chain mediators in the impact of negative life events on non-suicidal self-injurious behavior.