Aggression and Non-Suicidal Self-Injury among Depressed Youths: The Mediating Effect of Resilience

Abstract

Background: The global spread of COVID-19 not only exerted an enormous impact on the public in different countries but also aggravated depression among youths. The aggressive tendencies of depressed individuals can harm their body and life and threaten those of others. The aggressive and non-suicidal self-injurious behaviors of depressed youths may seriously affect their physical and psychological health if not identified and mediated promptly.
 Method: A total of 875 young respondents (including college students, community youths, migrant workers, and so on) from three provinces in China were surveyed in 2020 using a depression scale, non-suicidal selfinjury scale, aggression scale, and resilience scale.
 Results: Depression, non-suicidal self-injury, and aggression are significantly higher among the members of the depression group compared with the members of the healthy control group (P<0.001), and the resilience of the members of the former group is remarkably lower than that of the members of the latter group (P<0.001). Aggression among the depressed youths exhibits a significant positive correlation with non-suicidal self-injury (r= 0.43, P<0.01), whereas aggression (r= –0.18, P<0.05) and non-suicidal self-injury (r= –0.20, P<0.05) demonstrates significant negative correlations with resilience. The resilience of the youths in the depression group plays a partial mediating role in the relationship between aggression and non-suicidal self-injury.
 Conclusion: The more aggressive the behaviors of the depressed youths, the more serious their non-suicidal self-injurious symptoms. Furthermore, resilience plays a partial mediating role in the relationship between aggression and non-suicidal self-injury.

Relationship Between Childhood Trauma and Nonsuicidal Self-Injury Among Adolescents with Depressive Disorder: Mediated by Negative Life Events and Coping Style

“…One of the pathological manifestations is NSSI. 44,45 In addition, this study shows that adolescents with depressive disorders and NSSI behavior will experience more negative life events, and they are under greater pressure than non-NSSI. 46 Patients with NSSI have significantly higher scores on all dimensions of the negative life event scale and a higher degree of impact than non-NSSI patients.…”

Self-Injurious Behavior and Its Characteristics in a Sample of Mexican Adolescent Students

“…Some research points to the goal of self-injury (S.I.) being variable, relieving negative emotions that the individual may suffer, such as depression, anger, and anxiety [ 12 , 13 ], regulating negative affect, reducing stress, expressing emotions symbolically, self-punishing, obtaining care and attention from others, stopping dissociative episodes, even resisting a suicide attempt [ 14 , 15 , 16 ]. In clinical populations, prevalence assessments are between 30% and 40% of adolescents requiring psychiatric hospitalization because they have provoked some S.I.…”