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©The Author(s) 2026. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Psychiatry. Feb 19, 2026; 16(2): 113573
Published online Feb 19, 2026. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v16.i2.113573
Published online Feb 19, 2026. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v16.i2.113573
Protective role of perceived social support against adolescent self-injury addiction: Serial mediation of negative emotion and impulsivity
Bing Pan, Zheng Lin, Department of Psychiatry, The Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou 310009, Zhejiang Province, China
Mei-Yi Guo, Bing-Ren Zhang, School of Clinical Medicine, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou 311121, Zhejiang Province, China
Yun Gong, Department of Pediatrics, Hangzhou First People’s Hospital, Hangzhou 310009, Zhejiang Province, China
Co-corresponding authors: Bing-Ren Zhang and Zheng Lin.
Author contributions: Zhang BR and Lin Z contribute equally to this study as co-corresponding authors; Pan B contributed to the study design and collected the data, Guo MY contributed to the data analysis; Gong Y and Lin Z contributed to patient enrollment; Zhang BR conceived the study and led the data interpretation; Pan B and Zhang BR completed first draft of the paper; all authors revised it and approved the final manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine (No. 2024-0075) and was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration of Human Rights.
Informed consent statement: Written informed consents were obtained from all participants' legal guardians.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There is no conflict of interest associated with any of the senior author or other coauthors contributed their efforts in this manuscript.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement—checklist of items.
Data sharing statement:
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding or first author on reasonable request.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Bing-Ren Zhang, PhD, Lecturer, School of Clinical Medicine, Hangzhou Normal University, No. 2318 Yuhangtang Road, Hangzhou 311121, Zhejiang Province, China. bingrenz@hznu.edu.cn
Received: September 1, 2025
Revised: October 14, 2025
Accepted: November 24, 2025
Published online: February 19, 2026
Processing time: 151 Days and 15.9 Hours
Revised: October 14, 2025
Accepted: November 24, 2025
Published online: February 19, 2026
Processing time: 151 Days and 15.9 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: This study reveals a novel psychological mechanism: Perceived social support protects adolescents with non-suicidal self-injury from self-injury addiction by sequentially alleviating negative emotions (anxiety/depression) and impulsivity. These findings highlight the critical role of social support as a protective factor and propose that interventions targeting emotional regulation and impulse control may effectively break the cycle of self-injury addiction. This serial mediation model offers a theoretical basis for developing multi-level clinical strategies for adolescents with non-suicidal self-injury.