The relationship between adolescents' swimming self-efficacy and high-risk behaviors: a chain mediating model based on latent profile analysis

Background Drowning is the leading cause of injury-related deaths among teenagers in our country. High-risk swimming behaviors show strong correlational linkage with adolescent drowning incidents. Methods A survey was conducted with 3,239 teenagers with an average age of 12.73 ± 1.54. The swimming self-efficacy scale, water safety knowledge scale, water safety skills scale, and swimming high-risk behavior scale were used. The latent profile analysis was employed to explore differences in high-risk swimming behaviors across subgroups of swimming self-efficacy, and a chain mediation model was constructed. Results The results indicate that swimming self-efficacy comprises four latent categories: fear-avoidant Swimmer (58.6%), Tentative Swimmer (20.7%), Assertive Swimmer (14.9%), and Overconfident Swimmer (5.8%). High-risk swimming behaviors increased sequentially across profiles (all P < 0.001). Compared with the Fear-Avoidant Swimmer, the Tentative Swimmer [β = 0.005, 95%CI (0.002, 0.008), P < 0.001] and the Assertive Swimmer [β = 0.006, 95%CI (0.004, 0.010), P < 0.001] exerted statistically significant chain-mediated effects on high-risk swimming behaviors through water safety knowledge and skills. In contrast, the chain mediation effect did not hold for Overconfident Swimmer [95% CI (−0.001, 0.008)]; water safety skills alone had a statistically significant mediating effect on high-risk swimming behaviors [β = 0.036, 95% CI (0.021, 0.055), P < 0.001]. Conclusion The model indicates that adolescents exhibit group heterogeneity in swimming self-efficacy, which is characterized by a dual association with high-risk swimming behaviors: as self-efficacy increases, the frequency of high-risk behaviors also rises. However, groups with high swimming self-efficacy that are supported by water safety knowledge and skills can reduce the risk of injury due to their comprehensive safety preparedness. In contrast, excessive self-efficacy not grounded in cognitive and skill-based support is prone to inducing reckless risk-taking behavior. At the same time, a bias-corrected self-help method mediation analysis revealed that, within this mediation chain, the mediating effects of “Tentative swimmer” and “Assertive swimmer” were relatively weak. This suggests that the risk-mitigating effects of traditional, comprehensive water safety education—which relies on a chain of knowledge and skills—are very limited. Implementing stratified interventions targeting adolescents' swimming self-efficacy is a crucial measure for reducing the risk of drowning.