Exploring the interplay of discrimination perception, alexithymia, and shyness among hearing-impaired college students: a network approach

Background Hearing - impaired college students face limitations in auditory and verbal communication, placing them at higher risk for mental health problems. While previous studies have mostly used traditional structural equation models to examine the relationship between discrimination perception and psychological adaptation issues, these approaches have difficulty capturing complex nonlinear associations and dynamic interactions between variables. This study adopted a network analysis perspective to explore the association patterns between discrimination perception, shyness, and alexithymia among hearing - impaired college students, and to identify influential intervention targets. Methods This study was conducted in March 2026 on college students with hearing - impairments mainly from Fujian and Sichuan provinces using the Hearing-impaired Children perceived discrimination Questionnaire, the Social Withdrawal Subtypes and Peer Isolation Questionnaire, the Perth Alexithymia Questionnaire, and SPSS software for descriptive statistical analysis, and R software for network analysis. Results The discrimination perception–shyness network had 12 cross-community edges (range: −0.044 to 0.057). Most were small (below 0.06), suggesting weak conditional associations. The strongest edge was Pd3–S5 (0.057). Pd3 showed the highest BEI (0.057). The discrimination perception–alexithymia network had 5 cross-community edges (range: 0.012 to 0.050). All were small (below 0.06). The strongest edge was Pd5–A2 (0.050). Pd6 showed the highest BEI (0.071). Conclusion This study explored the relationships between discrimination perception, shyness, and alexithymia in hearing-impaired college students using network analysis methods. The Pd3 (Excluded from games) in the shyness network and Pd6 (Dishonesty) in the alexithymia network were identified as the highest bridge centrality nodes, suggesting that these are core symptoms connecting external stress to internal psychological adaptation difficulties and key triggers for social avoidance and emotional recognition difficulties in hearing-impaired college students. Thus, they represent the optimal targets for psychological intervention.