Inconclusive mediated effect of adverse childhood experiences on suicide risk among depressed adolescents: A reanalysis of Ye et al. (2026)
Abstract
Drawing on the covariance matrix published by Ye et al., we reexamined the evidence underlying their proposed mediation model linking adverse childhood experiences to suicide risk in adolescents with depression. We show that the observed associations can be reproduced almost exactly by a different latent-variable model that does not rely on the directional assumptions advanced in the original study. Within this alternative framework, self-reported adverse childhood experiences, anhedonia, self-hate, and suicide risk are treated as observable manifestations of a broader construct reflecting core self-evaluation. The results illustrate the challenge of model underdetermination in observational research, whereby competing theoretical accounts may provide equally good representations of the same data. These findings suggest that alternative model specifications should be considered and that correlational evidence alone offers limited support for specific influencing mechanisms.
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BibTeX
@misc{sorjonen2026inconclusive,
title = {{Inconclusive mediated effect of adverse childhood experiences on suicide risk among depressed adolescents: A reanalysis of Ye et al. (2026)}},
author = {Kimmo Sorjonen and Bo Melin and Marika Melin},
howpublished = {PsyArXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/gpv9d_v1},
url = {https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/gpv9d_v1/},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Inconclusive mediated effect of adverse childhood experiences on suicide risk among depressed adolescents: A reanalysis of Ye et al. (2026)
AU - Kimmo Sorjonen
AU - Bo Melin
AU - Marika Melin
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/10
PB - PsyArXiv
DO - 10.31234/osf.io/gpv9d_v1
UR - https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/gpv9d_v1/
AB - Drawing on the covariance matrix published by Ye et al., we reexamined the evidence underlying their proposed mediation model linking adverse childhood experiences to suicide risk in adolescents with depression. We show that the observed associations can be reproduced almost exactly by a different latent-variable model that does not rely on the directional assumptions advanced in the original study. Within this alternative framework, self-reported adverse childhood experiences, anhedonia, self-hate, and suicide risk are treated as observable manifestations of a broader construct reflecting core self-evaluation. The results illustrate the challenge of model underdetermination in observational research, whereby competing theoretical accounts may provide equally good representations of the same data. These findings suggest that alternative model specifications should be considered and that correlational evidence alone offers limited support for specific influencing mechanisms.
ER -