Parental Control and Nonsuicidal Self-Injury Among Adolescents in China: A Latent Profile Analysis

Background: Parents have a profound impact on the growth of adolescents, especially in terms of their mental health. Parental control is a key parenting dimension comprising two forms: behavioral control and psychological control. However, the relationship between different patterns of parental control and adolescent nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) remains underexplored. This study aimed to fill this gap by examining how various parental control profiles are associated with NSSI, with the parent–child relationship tested as a mediator. Methods: Using a cluster sampling approach, a total of 4032 junior high school students were recruited from eight middle schools in China. A latent profile analysis was conducted in Mplus (Version 7.8) to identify patterns in two dimensions of parental control: behavioral and psychological. The PROCESS macro in SPSS (Version 26) was then used to test the hypothesized parallel mediation model, in which parent–child conflict and parent–child cohesion mediated the association between parental control profiles and NSSI. Results: Three psychological–behavioral parental control profiles were identified among the adolescent participants: low–moderate (40.67%), moderate–moderate (45.58%), and high–high (13.75%). Adolescents in the high–high profile reported higher NSSI levels than those in the other two profiles, whereas the NSSI levels did not significantly differ between the low–moderate and moderate–moderate profiles. Parental control was associated with adolescent NSSI through the parallel mediation of parent–child conflict and parent–child cohesion. Using the moderate–moderate profile as a reference, the low–moderate profile was associated with lower parent–child conflict, whereas the high–high profile was associated with higher parent–child conflict and correspondingly higher NSSI levels. Conclusions: The findings suggest that parental control is significantly associated with adolescent NSSI, with the co-occurrence of high psychological and high behavioral control being the primary distinguishing feature of the highest-risk profile. Parent–child cohesion and parent–child conflict played important mediating roles in this association. This study provides a scientific basis for selecting high-risk forms of parental control for targeted interventions to reduce the incidence of NSSI in adolescents.