Table 1.
Information for All Measures Included in the Analyses
| Domain | Measuresa |
|---|---|
| Childhood adversity | The questionnaire (child self-administered version of the Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire—2nd Revision56,57) covers 5 adversity modules: conventional crime, child maltreatment, peer and sibling victimization, sexual victimization, and witnessing and indirect victimization, with each item with answer options “Yes” or “No.” The conventional crime module was excluded as it was only administered in a limited number of participants due to time constraints. The remaining 4 modules were scored by summing up the relevant items. |
| Stress (ESM) | Based on the vulnerability-stress model, evidence has suggested that elevated emotional reactions to daily life minor stressors mediate the relationship between childhood adversity and PEs.12,19,24,58–60 For social stress,24,28,29 participants were firstly asked to indicate “Who is with me?.” If alone, they then rated the following 2 items “I find being alone pleasant” (reversed) and “I prefer to have company” (from 1 “Not at all” to 7 “Very much”). If they are in company, they rated “I feel comfortable in this company” (reversed) and “I prefer to be alone.” Average score across a 6-day period of either 2 items was used to indicate the social stress level. For activity stress,24,28,29 participants were firstly asked “what are you doing?.” Then they rated current activity with 3 items “I would rather do something else,” “This is difficult for me” and “I can do this well” (reversed). Average score across the 6-day period and 3 items was used to index the activity stress level. |
| Negative affect (ESM) | For emotional reactivity in daily life, negative affect was included quantified by the average score across a 6-day period on 6 ESM items: “I feel irritated,” “I feel anxious,” “I feel insecure,” “I feel sad,” “I feel stressed,” “I feel restless” (from 1 “Not at all” to 7 “Very much”). |
| Loneliness (ESM) | Feeling of loneliness is another pathway suggested to mediate the relationship between childhood adversity and PEs.21 Here, we quantified loneliness with the average score across a 6-day period with the ESM item “I feel lonely” (from 1 “Not at all” to 7 “Very much”). |
| General psychopathology | Nonpsychotic symptoms, especially anxiety and depression, have been demonstrated to mediate the link between childhood adversity and PEs, especially in general population.21,61 Here, we quantified general psychopathology using the 53-item Brief Symptom Inventory,48,62 which asked participants to rate on a 5-point Likert scale (from 0 “Not at all” to 4 “Extremely”) to indicate to which extent they experienced those difficulties in the past 7 days. It covers 9 symptom dimensions, of which paranoid ideation and psychoticism are closely related to psychotic symptoms, thus excluded from the current analyses. The remaining 7 dimensions, including somatization, obsession-compulsion, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, were used to indicate a person’s level of symptomatology by summing up the relevant items. |
| Maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation | Affective dysregulation is another relevant mediator in relation to childhood adversity and PEs. Here we used the 18-item short version of the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire50,63 to quantify participants’ cognitive way of handling the emotional arousal situation. Participants were asked to rate on a 5-point Likert scale (from 1 “Almost never” to 5 “Almost always”) to indicate their thought following a negative experience. It covers 9 dimensions: positive refocusing, planning, positive reappraisal, putting into perspective, acceptance, self-blame, other-blame, rumination, and catastrophizing. The latter 4 dimensions are generally suggested as maladaptive and to be associated the most with psychopathological symptoms,43,49,50 thus were included in the current analyses. |
| Attachment insecurity | Based on attachment theory, the link between attachment insecurity and PEs has been well established14,17 and attachment style could mediate the association between childhood adversity and PEs.13,33 Here, we quantified attachment insecurity with the 36-item short version of the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment Revised,64,65 which asked participants to rate on a 4-point Likert scale (from 1 “Almost never” to 4 “Almost always”). The questionnaire covers attachment security to father, mother, and peers across 3 subdimensions (Communication, Trust, and Alienation). As the subdimension Alienation was only administered in a limited number of participants, we summed the scores of Communication and Trust reversely to indicate the degree of attachment insecurity to father, mother, and peer, separately. |
| Threat anticipation | Increasing evidence supports the role of threat anticipation in PEs and the association between childhood adversity and PEs.23,24,31,66,67 Here, we quantified threat anticipation with the 10-item short version of the Availability Test,38,68 which asked participants to indicate the possibility that each of 5 negative and 5 positive events described in the items would occur in the coming week on a 7-point Likert scale (from 1 “Very unlikely” to 7 “Very likely”). Negative items were included to indicate threat anticipation by summing up the scores. |
| Psychotic experiences | The Prodromal Questionnaire-1652,53 asked participants to indicate the presence of PEs through their lifetime as “True” or “False,” with True answers then rated the burden for that experience on a 4-point Likert scale (from 0 “Not burdensome” to 3 “Very burdensome”). We combined the endorsement and burdensome level to represent the continuum of PEs (0 = False, 1 = True and Not burdensome, 2 = True and Mild burdensome, 3 = True and Moderate burdensome, 4 = True and Very burdensome).53,69,70 Three subdimensions (perceptual abnormalities, unusual thought content, and negative symptoms) have been suggested as a good fit in a general population70 and were included in the current analyses, with each subdimension calculated by summing up the relevant items. |
Note: ESM, Experience Sampling Method; PEs, psychotic experiences.
aAll questionnaire items included an extra response option (ie, I do not wish to answer) due to the requirements from the participating schools. The proportion of each item with the extra response is reported in file “Supplementary_PQ_ProportionExtraResponse.csv” and data with the extra response were coded as missing data.