The Role of Core Self-Evaluation in Modifying the Relation between Childhood Traumatic Experiences and Suicidal Ideation among University Students

The aim of the study was to reveal the modified role of core self-evaluation in the relation between childhood traumatic experiences and suicidal ideation in a sample of university students. The sample included 215 students, 100 students from the Faculty of Sciences (50 male, 50 female), and 115 students from the Faculty of Law (50 male, 65 female), with an average age 20,94 (±0.63) both from Cairo University. The study used Childhood Traumatic Experiences Scale prepared by Enas Rizk (2023), the Translated version  by Heba Ghazi (2016) of the Adult Suicidal Ideation Questionnaire prepared by Reynolds 1991 (Reynolds & Mazza, 1999), and Core Self-Evaluation Scale prepared by Shirin Said (2018). Preliminary statistical analysis revealed significance differences in the study variables according to kind of faculty and gender. Based on these results, basic statistical analysis were conducted for each subset of the basic sample, which included: male students of the faculty of sciences (n=50), female students of the faculty of sciences (n=50), male students of the faculty of law (n=50), and female students of the faculty of law (n=65). The results showed that, in all four study groups, there was a significant positive correlation between childhood traumatic experiences and suicidal ideation, and significant negative correlation between core self-evaluation and suicidal ideation. The results supported the modified role of core self-evaluation in the relation between childhood traumatic experiences and suicidal ideation among students of faculty of sciences, On the other hand, the current results did not reveal a modified role of core self-evaluation among students of faculty of law. The results were discussed in context of hypothesis and related literature.