title: Specificity of childhood maltreatment and emotion deficit in nonsuicidal self-injury in an inpatient sample of youth.
abstract: The present study investigated the function of two specific emotion-related skills, emotion expressivity and emotion coping, as potential mediators in the relations between childhood sexual, physical, and emotional abuse and NSSI. A robust body of work supports the role of emotion regulation in nonsuicidal self-injury, but additional research is warranted to tease apart the role of specific emotion regulation deficits as predictors of NSSI. Participants included 95 youth (Mage=14.22, SDage=1.67; 58% female) hospitalized on one of two acute care psychiatric inpatient units. Participants completed self-report questionnaires related to childhood experiences of trauma, current emotion expressivity and coping, and lifetime frequency of NSSI. Path analytic models indicated that only child emotional abuse was directly associated with NSSI when all abuse subtypes were examined simultaneously. Results also indicated that poor emotion expressivity, but not emotion coping, mediated the relation between childhood experiences of emotional abuse and NSSI.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Ottawa, 4085 Vanier Hall, 136 Jean Jacques Lussier, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1N 6N5. Electronic address: kristel.thomassin@uottawa.ca.
authors.forename: Kristel
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Thomassin
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA.
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Shaffer
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA.
authors.forename: Amber
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Madden
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Health Behavior, Georgia Health Sciences University, Augusta, GA, USA.
authors.forename: Donna L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Londino
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological / Q000502:physiology; D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002649:Child Abuse / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology; D019260:Expressed Emotion / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006778:Hospitals, Psychiatric / Q000639:trends; D006801:Humans; D007297:Inpatients / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D057566:Self Report; D016728:Self-Injurious Behavior / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: Abuse; Emotion expressivity; Emotion regulation; Nonsuicidal self-injury; Youth