Childhood adversities and first onset of psychiatric disorders in a national sample of adolescents
By Katie A. McLaughlin, J. G. Green, M. Gruber, N. Sampson, Alan M. Zaslavsky, Ronald C. Kessler. Archives of General Psychiatry, 2012
914 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Context Although childhood adversities (CAs) are known to be highly co-occurring, most research examines their associations with mental disorders one at a time. Recent evidence from adult studies suggests, though, that the associations of multiple CAs with mental disorders are non-additive, arguing for the importance of multivariate analysis of multiple CAs. No attempt has yet been made to carry out a similar kind of analysis among children or adolescents. Objective To examine the multivariate associations of 12 CAs with first onset of mental disorders in a national sample of US adolescents. Design US national survey of adolescents (ages 13–17) assessing DSM-IV anxiety, mood, behavior, and substance disorders and CAs. The CAs include parental loss (death, divorce, other separations), maltreatment (physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, neglect), parental maladjustment (psychopathology, substance abuse, criminality, violence) and economic adversity. Setting Dual-frame household-school samples. Participants 6,483 adolescents-parent pairs. Main outcome measure Lifetime DSM-IV disorders assessed with the WHO Composite International Diagnostic Interview. Results 58.3% of adolescents reported at least one CA, among whom 59.7% reported multiple CAs. CAs reflecting maladaptive family functioning (MFF) were more strongly associated than other CAs with disorder onsets. The best-fitting model included terms for type and number of CAs and distinguished between MFF and Other CAs. CAs predicted behavior disorders most strongly and fear disorders least strongly. The joint associations of multiple CAs were sub-additive. The population-attributable risk proportions for disorder classes ranged from 15.7% for fear disorders to 40.7% for behavior disorders. CAs were associated with 28.2% of all onsets. Conclusions CAs are common, highly co-occurring, and strongly associated with onset of mental disorders among US adolescents. The sub-additive multivariate associations of CAs with disorder onsets have implications for targeting interventions to reduce exposure to CAs and to mitigate the harmful effects of CAs to improve population mental health.
Subfields: Clinical Psychology
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3b36211d2a56d52694ad65176d2efea5ae77139b
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Citations in the corpus
- Childhood Adversity and Neural Development: Deprivation and Threat as Distinct Dimensions of Early Experience (2014, background): “Evidence from opulation-based epidemiological studies indicates that childhood dversity is common and associated strongly with the subsequent nset of psychopathology not only in childhood, but also in adoescence and adulthood (Cohen et al., 2001; Green et al., 2010; essler et al., 1997; McLaughlin e”
- Childhood Adversity and Neural Development: A Systematic Review (2019, background): “…for psychopathology among those who have experienced childhood adversity persists throughout adolescence and adulthood, and approximately one-third of all mental disorders worldwide are attributable to exposure to childhood adversity (Green et al. 2010, Kessler et al. 2010, McLaughlin et al. 2012).”
- Beyond Cumulative Risk: A Dimensional Approach to Childhood Adversity (2016, background): “Children who have experienced adversity are more likely to develop psychopathology and chronic diseases, perform poorly at school, and have social and economic difficulties than children who have not encountered adversity (Felitti et al., 1998; Lansford et al., 2002; McLaughlin et al., 2012).”
- The social determinants of mental health and disorder: evidence, prevention and recommendations (2024, background): “Experience of childhood adversity is unfortunately common 89,92,93 .”