Childhood maltreatment is independently associated with heightened risks of non-suicidal self-injury, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts among early adolescents, while an elevated polygenic risk score is associated specifically with non-suicidal self-injury. According to a prospective cohort investigation published in BMC Psychiatry, researchers examined the separate and combined associations of early environmental trauma and genetic susceptibility to clarify how each factor contributes to distinct self-injurious thoughts and behaviors during early adolescence.
To evaluate these dynamics, the study tracked 1,402 Chinese adolescents who were between the ages of 11 and 15 years at baseline within the Chinese Adolescent Healthy Growth Cohort. Researchers gathered self-reported data across three time points, comprising an initial baseline assessment and two successive rounds of annual follow-up surveys. Validated questionnaires were administered at each stage to systematically capture participants’ experiences with childhood maltreatment alongside occurrences of non-suicidal self-injury, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts.
Alongside environmental reporting, the investigators quantified underlying genetic susceptibility by calculating a polygenic risk score for self-injurious thoughts and behaviors. This score was determined through the weighted accumulation of 48 specific risk alleles previously identified in East Asian populations. By focusing on these defined variants, the team sought to isolate the genomic contribution relevant to this demographic background and contrast its predictive utility against severe psychosocial stress encountered during development.
Statistical modeling was carried out using Poisson generalized linear models to estimate both the independent and joint associations of childhood adversity and polygenic vulnerability with the subsequent emergence of self-directed harm. The analytical framework evaluated each outcome separately, distinguishing non-suicidal self-injury from suicidal ideation and suicide attempts to assess whether genetic and environmental influences operate uniformly across different forms of self-injurious behavior.
The longitudinal findings demonstrated that childhood maltreatment was significantly tied to elevated risks across all three assessed behavioral domains. Specifically, exposed adolescents exhibited an adjusted relative risk of 1.61 for non-suicidal self-injury, with a 95 percent confidence interval spanning 1.15 to 2.25. The adjusted relative risk reached 1.38 for suicidal ideation, with a 95 percent confidence interval of 1.05 to 1.81, and rose to 2.02 for suicide attempts, corresponding to a 95 percent confidence interval between 1.16 and 3.51.
In contrast to the pervasive risks linked to early childhood maltreatment, genetic susceptibility displayed a more restricted pattern of association. Each standard deviation increase in the polygenic risk score was associated exclusively with non-suicidal self-injury, yielding an adjusted relative risk of 1.21 and a 95 percent confidence interval ranging from 1.06 to 1.39. Genetic risk did not show statistically significant associations with either suicidal ideation or suicide attempts in the adjusted cohort models.
When assessing the combined influence of both factors, the investigators observed that the joint associations of childhood maltreatment and polygenic risk with non-suicidal self-injury, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts were comparable to the sum of the individual risks. Formal interaction analyses revealed no statistically significant additive or multiplicative interactions between childhood maltreatment and polygenic risk scores, indicating that environmental adversity and genetic risk function largely as independent risk components.
The authors concluded that while childhood maltreatment exerts broad independent associations across the spectrum of self-injurious thoughts and behaviors, polygenic susceptibility was associated only with non-suicidal self-injury in this cohort. The research team noted that because the polygenic risk score was constructed from a limited set of candidate variants rather than full genome-wide data, the conclusions warrant cautious interpretation and require further validation in larger genomic datasets.
Subject of Research: Independent and joint associations of childhood maltreatment and polygenic risk with adolescent self-injurious thoughts and behaviors
Article Title: Childhood maltreatment, polygenic risk score, and risk of self-injurious thoughts and behaviors in early adolescents: a cohort study
Article References: Yang, S., Lin, X., Huang, M., Fu, H., Qu, D., Yan, Z., Luo, J., Zhang, Y., Chen, R., Zhou, W., Ji, J. S., Ma, Y., Wang, T., Huang, S., Chen, L., Yu, Y., Chen, R., & Tang, J. (2026). Childhood maltreatment, polygenic risk score, and risk of self-injurious thoughts and behaviors in early adolescents: a cohort study. BMC Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-026-08806-3
Image Credits: AI Generated
DOI: 10.1186/s12888-026-08806-3
Keywords: childhood maltreatment, polygenic risk score, self-injurious thoughts and behaviors, non-suicidal self-injury, suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, adolescent mental health, cohort study, Poisson generalized linear models, East Asian population genetics, psychiatric genetics, early adolescence, Chinese Adolescent Healthy Growth Cohort, adjusted relative risk, prospective study, environmental adversity