Association between Childhood Maltreatment and Suicidal Ideation and Suicide Attempts among Chinese Adolescents: The Moderating Role of Depressive Symptoms

Meiqian Gong, Sheng Zhang, Wenyan Li, Wanxin Wang, Ruipeng Wu, Lan Guo and Ciyong Lu
Additional contact information
Meiqian Gong: Department of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China
Sheng Zhang: Department of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China
Wenyan Li: Department of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China
Wanxin Wang: Department of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China
Ruipeng Wu: Department of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China
Lan Guo: Department of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China
Ciyong Lu: Department of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 17, 1-14

Abstract: Suicidal behavior is a major public health concern worldwide and has become the second-leading cause of death among adolescents. The purposes of this study were to investigate the associations between childhood maltreatment and suicidal behavior and to test whether depressive symptoms have moderating effects on these associations. A multistage stratified cluster randomized sampling method was adopted to collect data from 21,019 high school students in Guangdong Province, China. The prevalence of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts among Chinese adolescents were 18.2% and 3.6%, respectively. Physical abuse (adjusted odds ratios (AOR) = 1.35, 95% confidence intervals (CI) = 1.32–1.38), emotional abuse (AOR = 1.26, 95% CI = 1.25–1.28), sexual abuse (AOR = 1.25, 95% CI = 1.21–1.30), physical neglect (AOR = 1.09, 95% CI = 1.08–1.11), and emotional neglect (AOR = 1.08, 95% CI = 1.08–1.09) were all associated with an increased risk of suicidal ideation, and these associations were also found for suicide attempts. According to stratification analyses, physical abuse/emotional abuse/sexual abuse had a stronger effect on suicidal ideation and suicide attempts among students without depressive symptoms than among students with depressive symptoms. Childhood maltreatment was associated with an increased risk of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts in Chinese adolescents. Depressive symptoms play a moderating role in the association between childhood maltreatment and suicidal behaviors.

Keywords: suicidal ideation; suicidal attempts; childhood maltreatment; depressive symptoms; adolescents (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/17/6025/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/17/6025/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:17:p:6025-:d:400926

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().