Citation

Crow T, Cross D, Powers A, Bradley B. Child Abuse Negl. 2014; 38(10): 1590-1598.

Affiliation

Atlanta VA Medical Center, Mental Health Service, 1670 Clairmont Road, Decatur, GA 30033, USA; Emory University School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, 49 Jesse Hill Dr SE, Atlanta, GA 30303, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.chiabu.2014.05.015

PMID

25035171

Abstract

Abuse and neglect in childhood are well-established risk factors for later psychopathology. Past research has suggested that childhood emotional abuse may be particularly harmful to psychological development. The current cross-sectional study employed multiple regression techniques to assess the effects of childhood trauma on adulthood depression and emotion dysregulation in a large sample of mostly low-income African Americans recruited in an urban hospital. Bootstrap analyses were used to test emotion dysregulation as a potential mediator between emotional abuse in childhood and current depression. Childhood emotional abuse significantly predicted depressive symptoms even when accounting for all other childhood trauma types, and we found support for a complementary mediation of this relationship by emotion dysregulation. Our findings highlight the importance of emotion dysregulation and childhood emotional abuse in relation to adult depression. Moving forward, clinicians should consider the particular importance of emotional abuse in the development of depression, and future research should seek to identify mechanisms through which emotional abuse increases risk for depression and emotion dysregulation.

Language: en