Childhood trauma and internet addiction among Chinese adolescents: The mediating role of coping styles

Internet addiction (IA) among adolescents has become a major problem nowadays. Previous studies have found the association between childhood trauma and Internet addiction. There is evidence that coping styles may play a mediating role in this association, but related studies are still limited. This study aims to investigate the association between childhood trauma and Internet addiction among Chinese adolescents and whether coping styles mediate this association. A cross-sectional study design was adopted. Data were drawn from the Longitudinal Study of Adolescents' Mental and Behavioral Well-being Research (Registration No. ChiCTR1900022032). A multi-stage random cluster sampling was adopted to recruit a total of 1, 956 first-grade middle school students from ten high schools in Guangzhou. Demographic characteristics, childhood trauma, Internet addiction, and coping styles were measured. After controlling for sex, grade, household socioeconomic status, one child or not, living arrangement, family relation, smoking and drinking, multivariable linear regression models showed that physical abuse (unstandardized beta estimate = 0.846, 95% CI = 0.615 similar to 1.076), emotional abuse (unstandardized beta estimate = 0.997, 95% CI = 0.843 similar to 1.151), emotional neglect (unstandardized beta estimate = 0.218, 95% CI = 0.099 similar to 0.338) and sexual abuse (unstandardized beta estimate = 1.454, 95% CI = 1.065 similar to 1.844) were positively associated with IA. Further analyses showed that negative coping styles partially mediated the association between physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, and IA among all the participants. Adolescents with childhood traumatic experiences may have a higher risk for Internet addiction, and negative coping styles may play a mediating role. Attention should be paid to adolescents with childhood traumatic experiences, especially those possessing negative coping styles.