Toward a Better Understanding of Non-Suicidal Self-Injury in University Students: Examining Associations with Parent-Child Relationships, Emotion Regulation Difficulties, and Contextual Risk Factors
Creators: name: Guérin-Marion, Camille
Publisher: name: Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa
Year: 2022
Subjects: Non-suicidal self-injury
Parent-child relationships
Emotion regulation
Father-child relationships
Parental pressure
Positive emotion regulation
Academic coping
Perfectionism
University students

description: Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is increasingly understood as representing a public health concern and a behavioral marker of emotional and psychological distress among young people. NSSI is prevalent during the period of young adulthood, including among emerging adults pursuing a university education, yet the vulnerability factors associated with NSSI in this population merit more in-depth and contextualized investigation. The current dissertation's overarching objective was to better understand the risk context surrounding university students' engagement in NSSI. Using a sample of 2,579 students (75.2% female; Mage=18.97; SDage=1.54), Study 1 first explored the roles of parental (mother and father pressure) and intrapersonal (emotion dysregulation, academic coping, perfectionism subtypes) risk factors in university students’ likelihood and frequency of engagement in NSSI in the past year. An integrated latent structural equation model revealed that higher levels of perceived mother and father pressure were associated with a greater likelihood of past-year NSSI engagement in the university student sample. Among intrapersonal risk factors, only emotion dysregulation was found to be associated with higher NSSI likelihood and frequency. Building upon these results, Study 2 sought to narrow in further on understanding the emotion regulation profiles of university students with a past-year history of NSSI. Using a person-centered statistical approach, university students who reported having engaged in NSSI within the past year (n = 479; 83.8% female; Mage = 18.77; SDage = 1.43) were classified into latent profiles based on their self-perceived difficulties in regulating both positive and negative emotions. Independent samples of students who had a past history of NSSI but had not self-injured within the previous year (n = 439; 82.9% females; Mage = 19.03, SDage = 1.62) and who had no history of NSSI (n = 1551; 69.9% females; Mage = 19.02, SDage = 1.55) were included as comparison groups. Latent cluster analyses uncovered three emotion regulation profiles within the NSSI sample - the Average Difficulties (47.4%), Dysregulated (33.0%), and Low Difficulties (19.6%) profiles - each of which differed meaningfully from both comparison samples on mean levels of emotion regulation difficulties. Students across the three profiles also differed in their self-reported experiences with parents, particularly with fathers (perceived pressure, antipathy, unresolved attachment, psychological control), and in the extent to which they felt alienated from parents. Lastly, students across profiles differed in the frequency, methods, functions, and addictive properties of their NSSI. Taken together, findings from the current dissertation expanded our awareness of vulnerability factors for NSSI that have historically been understudied (e.g., parental pressure, father-child relationships, dysregulated positive emotions), while also bringing into focus the notion that even well-established NSSI risk factors (emotion regulation difficulties) can manifest quite heterogeneously amongst university students with a history of self-injurious behavior.