Childhood Trauma and Psychological Distress: A Serial Mediation Model among Chinese Adolescents

Lin Zhang, Xueyao Ma, Xianglian Yu, Meizhu Ye, Na Li, Shan Lu and Jiayi Wang
Additional contact information
Lin Zhang: Key Laboratory of Adolescent Cyberpsychology and Behavior, Ministry of Education, Wuhan 430056, China
Xueyao Ma: Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University of Ulm, Medical Psychology, Frauensteige 6, 89075 Ulm, Germany
Xianglian Yu: Key Laboratory of Adolescent Cyberpsychology and Behavior, Ministry of Education, Wuhan 430056, China
Meizhu Ye: Putian Huaqiao High School, Putian 351115, China
Na Li: Lie Dong Middle School, Sanming 365000, China
Shan Lu: Key Laboratory of Adolescent Cyberpsychology and Behavior, Ministry of Education, Wuhan 430056, China
Jiayi Wang: Department of Education, Jianghan University, Wuhan 430056, China

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 13, 1-11

Abstract: The consequence of childhood trauma may last for a long time. The purpose of the present study was to examine the effect of childhood trauma on general distress among Chinese adolescents and explore the potential mediating roles of social support and family functioning in the childhood trauma-general distress linkage. A total of 2139 valid questionnaires were collected from two high schools in southeast China. Participants were asked to complete the questionnaires measuring childhood trauma, social support, family functioning, and general distress. Pathway analysis was conducted by using SPSS AMOS 24.0 and PROCESS Macro for SPSS 3.5. Results showed that childhood trauma was positively associated with general distress among Chinese adolescents. Social support and family functioning independently and serially mediated the linkage of childhood trauma and general distress. These findings confirmed and complemented the ecological system theory of human development and the multisystem developmental framework for resilience. Furthermore, these findings indicated that the mental and emotional problems of adolescents who had childhood trauma were not merely issues of adolescents themselves, but concerns of the whole system and environment.

Keywords: childhood trauma; psychological distress; social support; family functioning; serial mediation; adolescent (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/13/6808/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/13/6808/ (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:18:y:2021:i:13:p:6808-:d:581763

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 ().