Objective To explore the impact of parental marital status and post-traumatic stress symptoms on psychotic-like experiences of college students， so as to provide a reference for the prevention of mental health problems in children from families with unstable marital status. Methods This study was a cross-sectional study. Using cluster sampling， all students in 16 schools of a university in northern China were selected from March to April 2023 for the study. The survey was conducted using the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Checklist-Civilian Version and the 15-Item Positive Subscale of the Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences. Logistic regression analysis was used to explore the factors influencing psychotic-like experiences. Process 3.3 plug-in in SPSS 22.0 was used for the mediating effect test. A total of 21 573 valid questionnaires were included in the analysis. Results The positive rates of psychotic-like experiences and subthreshold posttraumatic stress disorder（ PTSD） in university students were 8.26%（ 1 782/21 573） and 14.92%（ 3 219/21 573）， respectively. Differences in rates of subthreshold PTSD across gender， educational level， family history of mental illness， and parental marital status were statistically significant（ χ2=54.00， 224.15， 87.63， 299.77； all P ＜ 0.05）. Differences in rates of high psychotic-like experiences were statistically significant across gender， educational level， home location， family history of mental illness， and parental marital status（ χ2=7.36， 215.56， 13.08， 61.76， 183.72； all P＜ 0.05）. Univariate and multivariate Logistic regression analyses revealed that unstable parental marital status［ OR=2.20， 95%CI（ 1.96， 2.47）； OR=1.53， 95%CI（ 1.35， 1.74）］ and subthreshold PTSD［ OR=10.10， 95%CI（ 9.11，11.20）； OR=8.99， 95%CI（ 8.09， 9.99）］ were risk factors for high psychotic-like experiences， and the differences were statistically significant（ all P ＜ 0.05）. Controlling for the confounding variables of gender， age， education level， home location， only child， and family history of mental illness， unstable parental marital status positively predicted post-traumatic stress symptoms（ β=4.41， P＜0.001）， post-traumatic stress symptoms positively predicted psychotic-like experiences，（ β=0.19，P＜0.001）， and unstable parental marital status positively predicted psychotic-like experience（ β=1.24，P ＜ 0.001）， with all statistical differences. The mediating effect test showed that post-traumatic stress symptoms and each dimension（ trauma re-experience symptoms， avoidance and numbness symptoms， and increased alertness symptoms） partially mediated the parental marital status of university students and psychotic-like experiences， with mediating effects accounting for 66.94%， 52.42%， 58.87%， and 56.45% of the total effect， respectively. Conclusions Parental marital status， post-traumatic stress symptoms， and psychotic-like experiences in university students are closely related. Post-traumatic stress symptoms can partially mediate the effect of parental marital status on psychotic-like experiences among university students.