To understand the longitudinal association of adverse childhood experiences and self-control with mobile phone dependence among junior high school students, and to provide reference for the development of prevention and control measures.

Convenience sampling was used to select 863 junior high school students from 18 classes in 2 middle schools as the research subjects. The Childhood Adversity Questionnaire, Self-Control Scale, and Mobile Phone Dependence Index Scale were used as the survey tools. Two follow-up surveys were conducted in November 2023 (T1) and May 2024 (T2). SPSS 23.0 was used for independent sample t-tests, one-way ANOVA, paired sample t-tests, partial correlation analysis, and factor analysis. Mplus 8.3 software was used for cross-lagged analysis and mediation effect testing.

The partial correlation analysis revealed that both the adverse childhood experiences and self-control were statistically significantly correlated with the mobile phone dependence of junior high school students (r=-0.646-0.762, P<0.05). The cross-lagged model analysis indicated that the adverse childhood experiences at T1 could positively predict the mobile phone dependence at T2 (β=0.107, 95% CI: 0.050-0.164, P<0.05); the mediation model analysis showed that the mediating effect of the adverse childhood experiences on the influence of self-control on the mobile phone dependence of junior high school students was (β=0.019, 95% CI: 0.006-0.033, P<0.05).

Adverse childhood experiences could positively and indirectly affect mobile phone dependence through self-control among junior middle school students.