Composite Trauma and Mental Health Diagnosis as Predictors of Lifetime Nonsuicidal Self-Injury History in an Adult Online Sample

Abstract

Some research indicates that trauma history might be related to nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI), but the exact nature of this relationship is unknown. Therefore, we created and tested a structural equation model for the relationships between composite trauma, NSSI, mental health diagnosis, and gender in a community sample of 296 U.S. adults recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk. Composite trauma and mental health diagnosis were significantly predictive of an NSSI history. The pathway between NSSI and gender was not significant. It is important to consider multiple domains of trauma, in the form of composite lifetime trauma, as risk factors for NSSI.

Keywords:

• deliberate self-harm
• mental health
• nonsuicidal self-injury
• trauma