Dong WL, Li YY, Zhang YM, Peng QW, Lu GL, Chen CR. Influence of childhood trauma on adolescent internet addiction: The mediating roles of loneliness and negative coping styles. World J Psychiatry 2023; 13(12): 1133-1144 [PMID: 38186732 DOI: 10.5498/wjp.v13.i12.1133]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Chao-Ran Chen, Doctor, PhD, Professor, College of Nursing and Health, Institute of Nursing and Health, Henan University, Jinming Avenue, Kaifeng 475000, Henan Province, China. kfccr@126.com
Research Domain of This Article
Psychiatry
Article-Type of This Article
Observational Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Wang-Lin Dong, Yuan-Yuan Li, Yi-Ming Zhang, Qian-Wen Peng, Chao-Ran Chen, College of Nursing and Health, Institute of Nursing and Health, Henan University, Kaifeng 475000, Henan Province, China
Guang-Li Lu, School of Business, Institute of Business Administration, Henan University, Kaifeng 475000, Henan Province, China
Co-first authors: Wang-Lin Dong and Yuan-Yuan Li.
Author contributions: Dong WL wrote the first draft of the manuscript; Dong WL, Li YY, Zhang YM, Peng QW, and Lu GL were responsible for the analysis and interpretation of data; Chen CR directed all the work.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the Institutional Review Committee of Henan Provincial Key Laboratory of Psychology and Behavior (20230516001).
Informed consent statement: All participants signed informed consent forms.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: The datasets used during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement-checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement-checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Chao-Ran Chen, Doctor, PhD, Professor, College of Nursing and Health, Institute of Nursing and Health, Henan University, Jinming Avenue, Kaifeng 475000, Henan Province, China. kfccr@126.com
Received: August 23, 2023 Peer-review started: August 23, 2023 First decision: October 10, 2023 Revised: October 18, 2023 Accepted: November 21, 2023 Article in press: November 21, 2023 Published online: December 19, 2023 Processing time: 118 Days and 9.9 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND
In the information age, the use of the internet and multimedia tools has large effects on the life of middle school students. Improper use of the internet may result in internet addiction (IA). Thus, actively exploring the factors influencing adolescent and the mechanism of addiction as well as promoting adolescent physical and mental health and academic development are priorities that families, schools, and society urgently need to address.
AIM
To explore the effect of childhood trauma on adolescent IA and to consider the roles of loneliness and negative coping styles.
METHODS
A total of 11310 students from six junior high schools in Henan, China, completed the child trauma questionnaire, IA test, loneliness scale, and simple coping style questionnaire. In addition, data were collected from 1044 adolescents with childhood trauma for analysis with IBM SPSS 26.0 and AMOS 28.0; we examined the relationships among childhood trauma, IA, loneliness, and negative coping styles.
RESULTS
We found that childhood trauma not only directly affected adolescents’ IA but also affected IA through loneliness and negative coping styles.
CONCLUSION
Therefore, this study has theoretical implications regarding adolescent mental health and may inform interventions for IA.
Core Tip: This study is concluded: (1) Childhood trauma has a positive predictive effect on teenagers’ internet addiction (IA); (2) Childhood trauma has a negative psychological and behavioral impact on teenagers; (3) Loneliness and negative coping styles play a chain intermediary role in the influence of childhood on IA among teenagers; and (4) IA.
