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. 2025 Jul 1;13(1):656.
doi: 10.1186/s40359-025-02941-4.

Associations between obsessive-compulsive symptoms, impulsivity, and suicidality among Chinese college students: a latent profile analysis and mediation analysis

Woxin Pan  1 , Peipei Liu  1 , Mengyao He  1 , Meng Sun  1   2   3   4 , Yian Xiao  1 , Zixu Wang  1 , Lei Huang  1 , Mengzhu Zhang  1 , Chunyan Zhu  5   6   7   8 , Kai Wang  9
Affiliations

Associations between obsessive-compulsive symptoms, impulsivity, and suicidality among Chinese college students: a latent profile analysis and mediation analysis

Woxin Pan et al. BMC Psychol. .

Abstract

Objective: Previous research has established a strong association between obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and elevated suicidality; however, the impact of the severity of obsessive-compulsive symptoms (OCSs) on suicidality and the mechanisms underlying this influence remain insufficiently understood. Impulsivity is a strongly predictive factor for suicidality and positively correlated with OCD. Based on self-control depletion theory and dual-regulation models, OCSs might increase suicidality via impulsivity. Therefore, the present study aims to explore their relationship and the potential mediating role of impulsivity.

Methods: A total of 10,754 college students were assessed through questionnaires, including the Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90) Obsessive-Compulsive Subscale, the Brief Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BBIS), and the Suicide Behavioral Questionnaire-Revised (SBQ-R). Latent profile analysis was employed to classify participants into distinct groups, followed by a person-centered relative mediation analysis to validate the proposed model.

Results: Students were grouped into low OCSs, middle OCSs, and high OCSs. Using low OCSs as a reference, middle and high OCSs positively predicted impulsivity and suicidality, and the latter had a higher effect size. Impulsivity was a mediator as hypothesized.

Conclusions: Impulsivity is one of the reasons why OCSs enhance suicidality, and their relationship is increasingly strong when OCSs become severe.

Keywords: Impulsivity; Latent profile analysis; Mediation analysis; Obsessive-compulsive symptoms; Suicidality.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: All the methods were performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Informed consent was obtained from all participants. The study was approved by the Ethical Committee of Anhui Medical University (approval number: 81220284). Consent for publication: Not applicable. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Latent profile analysis model of OCSs. OCSs: obsessive-compulsive symptoms, class 2 = high OCSs, class 3 = middle OCSs, class 1 = low OCSs
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Person-centered relative mediating model of impulsivity. OCSs: obsessive-compulsive symptoms, *** means P<0.001
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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