[Effect of parental emotional neglect on non-suicidal self-injury behavior in adolescents: Mediating role of depressive mood].

OBJECTIVES: Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) behavior is increasingly prevalent among adolescents. Parental emotional socialization plays a critical role in adolescents' emotional regulation and behavioral development. Sadness, as an affective precursor of depressive mood, may influence adolescents' internalizing and externalizing problems when neglected by parents through emotion-regulation mechanisms. Adopting a triadic perspective of fathers, mothers, and adolescents, this study examined the pathways through which parental neglect of adolescents' sadness contributes to NSSI behaviors and tested the mediating role of depressive mood. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted among junior high school students and their parents in a secondary school in Shaoguan, Guangdong Province. Parental neglect of sadness was measured using the Childhood Emotional Scale; adolescent depressive mood was assessed using the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL); and NSSI behaviors were evaluated with the Adolescent Self-Injury Questionnaire. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to analyze the relationships among parental neglect, maternal neglect, adolescent depressive mood, and NSSI behaviors. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to examine the measurement model's fit. RESULTS: