The Association Between Cyberbullying Victimization and Suicidal Ideation Among Chinese College Students: The Parallel Mediating Roles of Core Self-Evaluation and Depression

Abstract

With the rapid development of science and technology, the Internet has formed a new form of aggression, which is called cyberbullying. Many studies have demonstrated that cyberbullying can cause serious damage to the physical and mental health of Chinese college students, such as depression and suicide. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between cyberbullying victimization and suicidal ideation and the parallel mediating roles of core self-evaluation and depression. A questionnaire was used to measure the research variables in this study among 1,509 college students. The results indicated that: After controlling for participants' gender, age, family structure, and family economic status, cyberbullying victimization significantly and positively related to suicidal ideation. Core self-evaluation and depression separately mediated the relationship between cyberbullying victimization and suicidal ideation. The mediating effect of depression was stronger than that of core self-evaluation. The findings support a parallel mediation model of the relationship between cyberbullying victimization and suicidal ideation. Our study may help to develop interventions and prevention measures for college students who experienced cyberbullying victimization.

Childhood emotional abuse and cyberbullying perpetration among Chinese university students: The chain mediating effects of self-esteem and problematic social media use

“…A study in EU member countries showed that the rate of victimization ranged from 2.8 to 31.5%, from 3.0 to 30.6% of cyber perpetration ( Henares-Montiel et al, 2022 ). Several studies have revealed that cyberbullying may lead to anxiety, depression, loneliness, social withdrawal, substance abuse, self-harm, and suicidality ( Kwan et al, 2020 ; Giumetti et al, 2021 ; Chu et al, 2022 ; Coelho et al, 2022 ; Pichel et al, 2022 ). However, much previous research focused on teenagers, and relatively few studies were conducted on university students.…”

Predictors of Suicide Behavior in Adolescents with Depression

“…The presence of negative affective states, such as depression and self-encumbrance, has been found to be associated with suicidal ideation. Moreover, research suggests that the severity of school bullying experienced by adoles-cents with depressive symptoms is positively correlated with the intensity of their suicidal ideation (58,59). The aforementioned analysis reveals that the primary result of the extant investigation pertains to suicidal ideation.…”