Mediating Effects of Specific Types of Coping Styles on the Relationship between Childhood Maltreatment and Depressive Symptoms among Chinese Undergraduates: The Role of Sex

Abstract

Although childhood maltreatment is known to be associated with depressive symptoms, few studies have investigated the mediating effect of different types of coping styles on this association. It is unknown whether the impacts vary by sex. We investigated the mediating effects of different coping styles on the relationship between childhood maltreatment and depressive symptoms among Chinese undergraduates, as well as the role of sex in the mediated pathways. A total of 7643 college freshmen and sophomores (5665 females, 1978 males; 4215 freshmen, 3428 sophomores; mean age, 19.67 years) from two colleges in China completed a standard questionnaire on the details of childhood maltreatment, depressive symptoms, and coping styles. Childhood maltreatment was significantly correlated with all coping styles and depressive symptoms studied (p < 0.001). Problem solving, self-blame, help seeking, problem avoidance, and rationalization mediated the relationship between childhood maltreatment and depressive symptoms. The estimated ratio of the effect of childhood maltreatment on the occurrence of depressive symptoms can be explained by the mediation of problem solving, self-blame, help seeking, problem avoidance, and rationalization, which accounted for 15.1%, 25.6%, 7.4%, 1.6% and 1.6% of the total effect, respectively. Sex differences were found to have mediating effects on coping styles in terms of the relationship between childhood maltreatment and depressive symptoms. The findings illustrate the need to focus on coping styles and to employ sex-specific methods to effectively help college students reduce depressive symptoms associated with childhood maltreatment.

A COVID-19 descriptive study of life after lockdown in Wuhan, China

“…This finding is in line with previous studies, that finding ways to resolve issues at hand and seeking help from others have been showed to be adaptive coping strategies for Chinese people, and linked to lower psychological maladjustment. In contrast, self-blame, fantasizing, and avoidance were related to maladaptive coping strategies, and linked with more negative outcomes (Tang & Dai, 2018;Song et al, 2020). However, we did not find the support for the prediction of any coping strategies on trajectory of change over time for psychological well-being and mental health risks.…”

“…Previous research looking at the link between the six coping strategies assessed in this research showed that coping with stress through problem-solving and seeking help were linked to lower depressive symptoms for first-year university students (Tang & Dai, 2018;Song et al, 2020), and correlated with post-traumatic growth among survivors of traumatic events (He, Xu, & Wu, 2013;Tuncay & Musabak, 2015). On the other hand, other coping strategies like self-blame, avoidance, fantasizing, or rationalization correlated with greater depressive symptoms (Tang & Dai, 2018;Song et al, 2020). While self-blame and avoidance have been shown to be associated with greater post-traumatic growth (He et al, 2013), results in relation to perception of post-traumatic growth should be interpreted with cautions.…”

A COVID-19 descriptive study of life after lockdown in Wuhan, China

“…This finding is in line with previous studies, that finding ways to resolve issues at hand and seeking help from others have been shown to be adaptive coping strategies for Chinese people, and linked to lower psychological maladjustment. By contrast, self-blame, fantasizing and avoidance were related to maladaptive coping strategies, and linked with more negative outcomes [ 19 , 20 ]. However, we did not find the support for the prediction of any coping strategies on trajectory of change over time for psychological well-being and mental health risks.…”

“…Previous research looking at the link between the six coping strategies assessed in this research showed that coping with stress through problem solving and seeking help were linked to lower depressive symptoms for first-year university students [ 19 , 20 ], and correlated with post-traumatic growth among survivors of traumatic events [ 21 , 22 ]. On the other hand, other coping strategies like self-blame, avoidance, fantasizing or rationalization correlated with greater depressive symptoms [ 19 , 20 ]. While self-blame and avoidance have been shown to be associated with greater post-traumatic growth [ 21 ], results in relation to the perception of post-traumatic growth should be interpreted with caution.…”

Self-esteem, Social support and coping Strategies of left-behind Children in Rural China, and the intermediary role of subjective support

“…Previous studies have pointed out that compared with NLBC, LBC are less likely to use positive coping styles such as problem-solving [26]. If a child has social problem-solving de cits, or have di culties identifying problems and generating appropriate solutions, he will have more hopelessness, depression, suicide-related behaviors [27,28]. Many studies have con rmed that social support provides relevant information and emotional support for problem-solving [26,29].…”