The field of nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is dominated by research conducted with Caucasian majority samples in Western countries such as North America and Europe. Far less NSSI-related research is conducted in non-Western cultures, even though NSSI behavior is a growing issue in China where studies have found that NSSI among youth occurs at a higher prevalence and has an earlier onset as compared to Western studies. Based on the data collected from middle school students in Xi’an, China, this article tries to figure out the predictive factors that are related to adolescents’ NSSI using gender analysis, specially negative life events and social support, and the following conclusions are drawn: (a) There is no significant gender difference in the prevalence of NSSI of middle school students. (b) Negative life events are the risk factors of middle school students’ NSSI engagement. Individuals with higher scores of negative life events are more likely to have NSSI. (c) Social support is a protective factor of middle school students’ NSSI, which has main effect and also as a moderator to NSSI, individuals received more social support are less likely to engage in NSSI.

Background University students are reporting concerning levels of mental health distress and challenges. University mental health service provider initiatives have been shown to be effective in supporting students’ mental health, but these services are often resource-intensive. Consequently, new approaches to service delivery, such as web-based and peer support initiatives, have emerged as cost-effective and efficient approaches to support university students. However, these approaches have not been sufficiently evaluated for effectiveness or acceptability in university student populations. Objective Thus, the overarching goal of this study was to evaluate a mental health service provider–presented versus peer-presented web-based mental health resilience–building video outreach program against a wait-list comparison group. Methods Participants were 217 undergraduate students (mean age 20.44, SD 1.98 years; 171/217, 78.8% women) who were randomly assigned to one of the intervention groups (mental health service provider–presented: 69/217, 31.8%; peer-presented: 73/217, 33.6%) or the wait-list comparison group (75/217, 34.6%). Participants in the intervention groups were asked to watch 3 brief skill-building videos addressing strategies for building mental health resilience, whereas the comparison group was wait-listed. The mental health service provider–presented and peer-presented video series were identical in content, with presenters using a script to ensure consistency across delivery methods, but the videos differed in that they were either presented by mental health service providers or university students (peers). All participants were asked to complete web-based self-report measures of stress, coping self-efficacy, social support, social connectedness, mindfulness, and quality of life at baseline (time 1), 6 weeks later (time 2, after the intervention), and 1-month follow-up (time 3). Results Results from a series of 2-way ANOVAs found no significant differences in outcomes among any of the 3 groups. Surprisingly, a main effect of time revealed that all students improved on several well-being outcomes. In addition, results for program satisfaction revealed that both the mental health service provider–presented and peer-presented programs were rated very highly and at comparable levels. Conclusions Thus, findings suggest that a web-based mental health resilience–building video outreach program may be acceptable for university students regardless of it being mental health service provider–presented or peer-presented. Furthermore, the overall increases in well-being across groups, which coincided with the onset and early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, suggest an unexpected pattern of response among university students to the early period of the pandemic. Limitations and barriers as well as research implications are discussed. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05454592; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05454592

Why do some people routinely respond to emotional difficulty in ways that foster resilience, while others habitually engage in responses associated with deleterious consequences over time? This study examined relations between emotion controllability beliefs and goals for emotion regulation (ER) with peoples’ multivariate profile of cognitive ER strategy use. Cluster analysis classified 481 university students (81% female) as adaptive, maladaptive, or low regulators based on their multivariate profile of engagement in five adaptive and four maladaptive cognitive ER strategies. A discriminant function analysis predicting the multivariate profiles supported that lower emotion controllability beliefs and lower performance-avoidance goals for ER significantly distinguished maladaptive regulators from adaptive regulators. Moreover, lower learning, performance-avoidance, and performance-approach goals for ER significantly distinguished low regulators from maladaptive and low regulators. Taken together, findings support that emotion-related beliefs and goals may help to clarify why some people habitually engage in more adaptive patterns of cognitive ER in response to negative life events than others.

Stressful experiences are abundant in university and students with a history of nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) may be hyper-reactive to stress. While brief mindfulness inductions have been proposed as a buffer against acute stress, whether they function differently in students with a history of NSSI remains in question. This study sought to explore the impact of an online mindfulness induction on (a) two facets of state mindfulness (i.e., mind and body) and (b) state stress, following a stress induction task, in university students with versus without a history of NSSI. Participants were Canadian university students with ( n = 82; Mage = 21.30 years, SD = 2.92; 87.8% female) and without ( n = 82; Mage = 21.71 years, SD = 3.18; 87.8% female) a history of NSSI, matched on gender, age, and faculty, who completed baseline (T1) measures of state stress and state mindfulness. Participants were randomly assigned to complete a mindfulness induction or an active control task. All participants then underwent a stress induction, and again completed measures of state stress and state mindfulness (T2). Results from three-way mixed ANOVAs revealed that state stress increased from T1 to T2 for all participants, regardless of group or condition. Among those assigned to the control condition, state mindfulness of the body was lower at T2 for participants with a history of NSSI compared to those without such a history. However, participants with a history of NSSI who completed the mindfulness induction reported greater state mindfulness of the body at T2 than students with a history of NSSI who completed an active control task. Findings highlight the unique response of university students with a history of NSSI to a brief mindfulness induction. Implications are discussed in the context of future research and clinical applications.

BACKGROUND Since the COVID-19 pandemic, online stress management resources such as infographics and online workshops have been central in supporting university students’ mental health and well-being. However, there is a lack of research on students’ satisfaction with these approaches. Furthermore, mental health stigma has been suggested to influence student’s help-seeking behaviours and may impact their uptake of online resources. OBJECTIVE Thus, the present study compared potential differences in students’ satisfaction and strategy use with the infographic, an innovative emerging resource modality, and the online workshop, a more common and standard online modality. The present study further examined the relative contribution of students’ strategy use and family-based mental health stigma in predicting their sustained satisfaction with the two online stress management approaches. METHODS University students (N = 113; Mage = 20.93, SD = 1.53; 88.5% women) completed an online self-report measure of family-based mental health stigma at baseline and were randomly assigned either to the infographic group (n = 60) or the online workshop group (n = 53). All participants reported their satisfaction at post (T1) and follow-up (T2) and strategy use at T2. RESULTS Interestingly, a two-way mixed ANOVA revealed no significant interaction or main effect of group, however, despite their high satisfaction at both T1 and T2, there was a significant decrease in satisfaction from T1 to T2. In addition, a one-way ANOVA revealed no significant difference in strategy use between groups. Results from a hierarchical multiple regression revealed that students’ strategy use positively predicted T2 satisfaction in both groups. However, only in the online workshop group did family-based mental health stigma predict T2 satisfaction over and above strategy use. CONCLUSIONS While both approaches demonstrated high satisfaction at T1 and T2, findings highlight the potential utility of interactive infographics since they are less resource-intensive than online workshops, and students’ satisfaction with them is not impacted by family-based mental health stigma.