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. 2024 Aug 19:16:1221-1233.
doi: 10.2147/NSS.S470557. eCollection 2024.

Self-Compassion as a Mediator Linking Sleep Disturbances with Non-Suicidal Self-Injury: A Four-Wave, Cross-Lagged Study

Xuliang Shi #  1 , Miaomiao Hou #  1 , Xiaoyan Chen  2 , Ya Zhu  3
Affiliations

Self-Compassion as a Mediator Linking Sleep Disturbances with Non-Suicidal Self-Injury: A Four-Wave, Cross-Lagged Study

Xuliang Shi et al. Nat Sci Sleep. .

Abstract

Objective: This longitudinal study examined the reciprocal relationship between sleep disturbances with non-suicidal self-injury and whether self-compassion mediates these associations.

Methods: A total of 5785 freshmen were sampled from a large-scale health-related cohort among Chinese college students at the baseline. This study spanned six waves with a six-month interval between each wave. Data from the last four waves were used because self-compassion or non-suicidal self-injury was not measured in the first two waves. The cross-lagged panel models were used to examine the longitudinal dynamic relationships between sleep disturbances, self-compassion, and non-suicidal self-injury.

Results: The results showed that all the auto-regressive paths were significant. For the cross-lagged paths, there was a reciprocal relation between sleep disturbances and self-compassion. Importantly, self-compassion played a longitudinal mediating role in the prediction from sleep disturbances to non-suicidal self-injury (indirect effect = 0.007 to 0.009, all p values < 0.001).

Conclusion: Psychological interventions targeting improved sleep quality and self-compassion may hold great promise for reducing the incidence of non-suicidal self-injury.

Keywords: NSSI; longitudinal design; self-compassion; sleep disturbances.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest in this work.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Sampling procedure for the current study.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The prevalence of non-suicidal self-injury among college students.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Cross-Lagged Panel Model for sleep disturbances and non-suicidal self-injury.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Cross-Lagged Panel Model for sleep disturbances, self-compassion, and non-suicidal self-injury.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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Grants and funding

This study was supported from the Open Experimental Project of Hebei University (Grant No. sy202201), and Higher Education Teaching Reform Project of Hebei Province (Grant No. 2021GJJG684).

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