Social Trauma and Suicidal Ideation among College Students: The Roles of Psychache and Optimism

Jin Tonglin; Wu Yuntena; Zhang Lu; Liu Zhenhui; Li Xin; Jiang Yongzhi

doi:10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240430

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Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2024, Vol. 47 ›› Issue (4) : 1008-1015. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240430

Clinical Psychology & Consulting

Social Trauma and Suicidal Ideation among College Students: The Roles of Psychache and Optimism

Jin Tonglin^1,2, Wu Yuntena^1,2, Zhang Lu¹, Liu Zhenhui¹, Li Xin¹, Jiang Yongzhi³

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Abstract

Suicide has become a serious problem for college students in recent years. According to previous researches, the rate of suicide in Chinese college students is about 2% to 24%. Based on the strain theory of suicide, social trauma is crucial in causing suicidal ideation. Moreover, the three-factor model of suicide theory regards psychache as a potential suicidal factor. In addition, some researches find that optimism can decrease college students' suicidal ideation. However, there is limited research focusing on the relations among social trauma, psychache, optimism, and suicidal ideation. To sum up, the purposes of the present study is to construct a moderated mediation model to examine the mediating role of psychache and the moderating role of optimism in the relation between social trauma and suicidal ideation among college students.
A total of 550 college students were selected, with 270 males and 280 females. The average age was 19.21-year-old. The questionnaires included the Social Trauma Questionnaire, the Suicidal Ideation Scale, the Psychache Scale, and the Optimism Questionnaire. Data were collected and analyzed with Spss 24.0 and Mplus 7.4, and the bias-corrected percentile bootstrap method was used to analyze the roles of psychache and optimism in the relation between social trauma and college students' suicidal ideation. A single method-factor approach was used to test the common method variance. Results showed that this study had an in-existent common method variance. The correlation results show that social trauma, psychache, and suicidal ideation were positively correlated with each other, while optimism, psychache, and suicidal ideation were negatively correlated with each other.
The structural equation model results showed that: (1) The data fits the theoretical model well (χ²/df = 3.53, CFI = .92, TLI = .90, GFI = .93, RMSEA = .07). (2) Social trauma had a significant direct effect on suicidal ideation of college students(β = .15, p < .001); Social trauma had a significant direct effect on psychache of college students(β = .41, p < .001); Psychache had a significant direct on suicidal ideation of college students(β = .35, p < .001); Optimism had a significant direct effect on suicidal ideation of college students(β = -.21, p < .001); Optimism had a significant direct effect on psychache of college students(β = -.35, p < .001). The interaction of social trauma and optimism had a significant direct effect on suicidal ideation and psychache of college students(β = -.20, p < .001; β = -.32, p < .001); The interaction of psychache and optimism had a significant direct effect on suicidal ideation of college students (β = -.20, p < .001). (3) Social trauma had a significant indirect effect on suicidal ideation through psychache of college students, and its confidence interval of 95% is [.07, .23]. (4) Under the low optimism level, there was a positive relation among social trauma and suicidal ideation, psychache and suicidal ideation, or social trauma and psychache of college students. However, there was a non-significant relation among them under the high optimism level.
It is concluded that in the structural equation model of social trauma on suicidal ideation of college students, psychache plays a partial mediating role and optimism moderates their relations. These findings suggest some measures of prevention and treatment for college students' suicidal ideation should be taken. On the one hand, it is important to protect college students from the harm of social trauma, school should strengthen their life education. On the other hand, it is also crucial to promote college students' mental health level, school and family should teach them to build stronger interpersonal relationships and appropriate distress coping strategies.

Key words

college students / social trauma / suicidal ideation / psychache / optimism

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Jin Tonglin, Wu Yuntena, Zhang Lu, Liu Zhenhui, Li Xin, Jiang Yongzhi. Social Trauma and Suicidal Ideation among College Students: The Roles of Psychache and Optimism[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2024, 47(4): 1008-1015 https://doi.org/10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240430

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