Association between positive youth development and non-suicidal self-injury: A longitudinal survey of children and adolescents in southwest China, 2019–21

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) could lead to serious problems (exp. suicidal attempts) among children and adolescents. Positive youth development (PYD) focuses on comprehensive development instead of a single problem. This study aims to explore the longitudinal relationship between NSSI and PYD among Chinese children and adolescents. The longitudinal study used the three-wave dataset from the Chengdu Positive Child Development (CPCD) in southwest China between 2019 and 2021, including 10,370 participants. The parallel process Latent Growth Curve Model (LGCM) was utilized to analyze the relationship between PYD and NSSI across time. The study results demonstrated that the initial level of NSSI is negatively associated with the initial value (β = −0.730, p < 0.01) and the growth rate (β = −0.012, p < 0.01) of PYD, and the development rate of the two variables are negatively related to each other(β = −0.120, p < 0.01). The specific relationships between PYD attributes and NSSI should be explored in the future. And the cultural variation among countries deserves more research. Moreover, the dynamic cohort research leads to a relatively high loss of participants. PYD and NSSI are closely associated among children and adolescents. Instead of playing a protective role, PYD tends to be predicted by NSSI behaviors over time.