Children who experience abuse or neglect are more likely to suffer from a wide range of mental health problems including internalizing disorders, such as depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicide attempts, externalizing disorders, such as behavior, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), alcohol and drug use and psychosis, according to the results of a study led by researchers at University College London (UCL).
The researchers’ aim was to analyze the impact of child abuse on mental health taking into account other environmental and genetic risk factors, such as unfavorable socioeconomic status or a family history of mental illness. The findings – published in the American Journal of Psychiatry – suggest that preventing eight cases of child abuse would prevent a person from developing mental health problems.
The researchers defined child maltreatment as any physical, sexual, or emotional abuse or neglect before the age of 18, and the effects found were consistent regardless of the method used or how abuse and mental health were measured. The first research of its kind looked at 34 quasi-experimental studies, involving more than 54,000 people.
“Interventions that prevent maltreatment are not only essential for child well-being, but could also prevent long-term suffering from mental illness”
Quasi-experimental studies allow better determination of cause and effect in observational data using specialized samples (for example, identical twins) or innovative statistical techniques to rule out other risk factors. For example, in samples of identical twins, if one abused twin has mental health problems, but hers’ non-abused twin does not, the association cannot be due to genetics or shared family background.
Childhood abuse and psychiatric risk factors
Dr Jessie Baldwin (UCL Psychology and Language Sciences) and author of the paper said: “It is well known that child maltreatment is associated with mental health problems, but it was unclear whether this relationship is causal or better explained. by other risk factors. This study provides rigorous evidence to suggest that child maltreatment has small causal effects on mental health problems. Although small, these effects of maltreatment could have far-reaching consequences, as mental health problems predict a variety of poor outcomes, including unemployment, physical health problems, and early mortality. Therefore, interventions that prevent maltreatment are not only essential for child well-being, but could also prevent long-term suffering and financial costs due to mental illness.”
The paper’s authors, however, also found that part of the overall risk of mental health problems in people who had experienced abuse was due to pre-existing vulnerabilities, which could include other adverse environments (for example, economic hardship or social disadvantage) and genetic inheritance.
In addition, among the limitations of the study, it stands out that firm conclusions could not be drawn on the specific effects of the different types of abuse, since it is common for a person to be exposed to different types of abuse/neglect at the same time, and the studies They don’t usually take it into account. Due to lack of data, we could not analyze the effects of timing of abuse, interval between abuse and onset of mental health problems, or differences between racial or ethnic groups, so further research is needed to clarify this questions.
Dr. Baldwin concludes: “Our findings also suggest that to minimize the risk of mental health problems in people exposed to abuse, clinicians need to address not only the experience of abuse, but also pre-existing psychiatric risk factors.”
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