ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Addictive Disorders
This article is part of the Research TopicFostering Wellness in Health Science Education: Empowering Students for a Healthier Future in HealthcareView all 6 articles
Exploring the Relationship Between Childhood Trauma and Internet Addiction Among Nursing Students: A Latent Profile and Mediation Analysis
Provisionally accepted
- 1Jishou University, Jishou, China
- 2Macao Polytechnic University, Macau, Macao, SAR China
- 3Nanjing Gaochun People's Hospital, Nanjing, China
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Background Improving Internet addiction among nursing students is of great significance to the future development of the nursing industry. Previous studies have proved that childhood trauma is closely related to Internet addiction. However, the direct relationship between alexithymia and childhood trauma and Internet addiction has not been fully explored. The aim of this study is to identify different subgroups of nursing students based on their childhood trauma and to examine the mediating role of alexithymia between childhood trauma and Internet addiction. Method From April to May 2025, 3,697 nursing students were recruited as samples from Shandong, Hubei, Hunan, and Henan provinces in China by convenient sampling. This survey collected social demographic data. Including The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire - Short Form (CTQ-SF), the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-26), and the Internet addiction Scale. Potential profile analysis was used to determine the potential categories of childhood trauma characteristics of nursing students, and Pearson correlation analysis, Bayesian factor robustness analysis and mediation analysis were used to determine the potential relationships among variables. Result LPA identified three distinct groups based on their dominant usage: low (77.4%), medium (19.5%), and high (3.1%). In the relationship between childhood trauma and Internet addiction based on potential profile analysis, alexithymia has a significant mediating effect (SE = 0.442,95%CI = 0.095, 1.824; SE = 0.219, 95%CI = 0.093, 0.962). Conclusion There is heterogeneity in childhood trauma among nursing students. Alexithymia plays an important mediating role in the relationship between childhood trauma and Internet addiction. It is suggested that nursing educators pay attention to the differences in childhood trauma among nursing students, provide corresponding psychological counseling for different students, improve them, thereby alleviating Internet addiction among nursing students and promoting their mental health.
Keywords: alexithymia, childhood trauma, Internet addiction, Mental Health, Nursingeducation
Received: 29 Oct 2025; Accepted: 04 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Li, HUANG and Kong. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Ying Li
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