Associations between adverse childhood experiences, parent-child and peer attachment relationships, and daily-life self-harm in adolescents
Abstract
Objective: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are associated with self-harm, but it remains unclear whether they are differentially associated with self-harm thoughts and behaviours and which factors may attenuate these associations. We investigated associations between ACEs and lifetime and daily-life self-harm thoughts and behaviours in adolescents, and whether paternal, maternal, or peer attachment relationship quality moderated these associations. Additionally, we explored associations with specific types of ACEs. Method: N = 1014 adolescents (mean age = 14.05 years, SD = 1.91; 66.66% female) were recruited from the general population through schools across Flanders, Belgium. Retrospective questionnaires assessed ACEs, lifetime self-harm thoughts and behaviours, and paternal, maternal, and peer attachment relationship quality. Experience Sampling Methodology (ESM) assessed daily-life self-harm thoughts and behaviours ten times per day for six days. Results: Greater exposure to ACEs was associated with lifetime self-harm and with greater odds of reporting self-harm thoughts and behaviours in daily life, but not with the intensity of daily-life self-harm thoughts when present. Maternal attachment relationship quality attenuated the associations between ACEs and lifetime self-harm and between ACEs and daily-life thought intensity, but did not moderate the occurrence of daily-life self-harm thoughts or behaviours. Paternal and peer attachment relationship quality did not moderate these associations. Exploratory analyses indicated variation across ACE types, with sexual victimization showing the most consistent associations across lifetime and daily-life self-harm outcomes. Conclusions: Findings are consistent with conceptualizing ACEs as background vulnerability factors within the pre-motivational phase of the IMV model and suggest that maternal attachment relationship quality may attenuate some associations between ACEs and adolescent self-harm. Distinguishing between the occurrence and intensity of self-harm thoughts in daily life may help clarify how childhood adversity relates to self-harm.
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BibTeX
@misc{janssens2026associations,
title = {{Associations between adverse childhood experiences, parent-child and peer attachment relationships, and daily-life self-harm in adolescents}},
author = {Julie Janssens and Ginette Lafit and Eva De Corte and Robin Achterhof and Karlijn Hermans and Anu P. Hiekkaranta and Inez Myin-Germeys and Olivia Kirtley},
howpublished = {PsyArXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/bt58k_v4},
url = {https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/bt58k_v4/},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Associations between adverse childhood experiences, parent-child and peer attachment relationships, and daily-life self-harm in adolescents
AU - Julie Janssens
AU - Ginette Lafit
AU - Eva De Corte
AU - Robin Achterhof
AU - Karlijn Hermans
AU - Anu P. Hiekkaranta
AU - Inez Myin-Germeys
AU - Olivia Kirtley
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/26
PB - PsyArXiv
DO - 10.31234/osf.io/bt58k_v4
UR - https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/bt58k_v4/
AB - Objective: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are associated with self-harm, but it remains unclear whether they are differentially associated with self-harm thoughts and behaviours and which factors may attenuate these associations. We investigated associations between ACEs and lifetime and daily-life self-harm thoughts and behaviours in adolescents, and whether paternal, maternal, or peer attachment relationship quality moderated these associations. Additionally, we explored associations with specific types of ACEs. Method: N = 1014 adolescents (mean age = 14.05 years, SD = 1.91; 66.66% female) were recruited from the general population through schools across Flanders, Belgium. Retrospective questionnaires assessed ACEs, lifetime self-harm thoughts and behaviours, and paternal, maternal, and peer attachment relationship quality. Experience Sampling Methodology (ESM) assessed daily-life self-harm thoughts and behaviours ten times per day for six days. Results: Greater exposure to ACEs was associated with lifetime self-harm and with greater odds of reporting self-harm thoughts and behaviours in daily life, but not with the intensity of daily-life self-harm thoughts when present. Maternal attachment relationship quality attenuated the associations between ACEs and lifetime self-harm and between ACEs and daily-life thought intensity, but did not moderate the occurrence of daily-life self-harm thoughts or behaviours. Paternal and peer attachment relationship quality did not moderate these associations. Exploratory analyses indicated variation across ACE types, with sexual victimization showing the most consistent associations across lifetime and daily-life self-harm outcomes. Conclusions: Findings are consistent with conceptualizing ACEs as background vulnerability factors within the pre-motivational phase of the IMV model and suggest that maternal attachment relationship quality may attenuate some associations between ACEs and adolescent self-harm. Distinguishing between the occurrence and intensity of self-harm thoughts in daily life may help clarify how childhood adversity relates to self-harm.
ER -