The chain mediating effect of mindfulness and perceived stress between childhood trauma and psychotic-like experiences among college freshmen / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To explore the mediating effects of mindfulness and perceived stress between childhood trauma and psychotic-like experiences.Methods:In October 2021, 602 freshmen from a university in Guangdong Province were tested by childhood trauma questionnaire(CTQ), mindful attention awareness scale(MAAS), perceived stress scale(PSS), and community assessment of psychic experiences(CAPE). SPSS 21.0 and Mplus 8.3 were used for data analysis. Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare the differences between groups, and Spearman correlation analysis was used to investigate the correlation among childhood trauma, mindfulness, perceived stress and psychotic-like experiences. Bias-corrected nonparametric percentile Bootstrap method was used to examine the mediating roles of mindfulness and perceived stress between childhood trauma and psychotic-like experiences. Results:(1) In the past one month, 59.5% of the freshmen had psychotic-like experiences, and 8.5% of them experienced the distress. (2)Childhood trauma was positively correlated with perceived stress( r=0.29, P<0.01), frequency ( r=0.14, P<0.01)and distress( r=0.17, P<0.01) of psychotic-like experiences, and was negatively correlated with mindfulness( r=-0.28, P<0.01). (2)Mindfulness and perceived stress played individual mediating effects and chain mediating effect between childhood trauma and frequency of psychotic-like experiences, with effect size of 0.08, 0.04, 0.03, accounting for 53.33%, 26.67%, 20.00% of the total indirect effect(effect size=0.15), respectively. Mindfulness and perceived stress played individual mediating effects and chain mediating effect between childhood trauma and distress of psychotic-like experiences, with effect size of 0.07, 0.04, 0.03, accounting for 50.00%, 28.57%, 21.43% of the total indirect effect(effect size=0.14), respectively. Conclusion:Childhood trauma can affect psychotic-like experiences and distress through the indirect effects of mindfulness and perceived stress, or through the chain mediating effect of mindfulness-perceived stress.