Childhood Emotional Maltreatment, Regulatory Emotional Self-Efficacy, and Suicide Risk in Chinese Adolescents: A Network Analysis and Latent Growth Modeling Approach

Childhood maltreatment is a well-established risk factor for adolescent suicide, yet it remains unclear which specific types of maltreatment are most central in relation to suicide risk and how regulatory emotional self-efficacy (RESE) may shape this relationship over time. To address this gap, the present study aimed to identify the core types of childhood maltreatment, examine their longitudinal associations with adolescent suicide risk, and test the mediating role of RESE. A sample of 1,246 Chinese middle school students (M age = 13.58 ± 0.76) was assessed at three time points over a 12-month period. Network analysis identified emotional abuse and emotional neglect as the core types of childhood maltreatment most strongly interconnected with suicide risk. Latent growth modeling revealed that the overall level of suicide risk among adolescents decreased over a year, whereas RESE showed a linear increase over the same period. A longitudinal mediation model further indicated that the initial level of RESE partially mediated the associations of emotional abuse and neglect with initial suicide risk, and fully mediated the associations between these maltreatment types and the rate of change in suicide risk over time. These findings suggest that emotional abuse and neglect have stronger predictive effects on adolescent suicide risk than other types of childhood maltreatment, and that enhancing RESE may be a promising target for prevention and intervention.