A Study on the Response Characteristics of 'Draw-A-Weather of Mother and Child(DWMC)' in Adult Women with Childhood Emotional Abuse

IntroductionChildhood abuse has been reported as a precursor and maintaining factors for adult psychiatric disorders. Childhood physical abuse, neglect and sexual abuse have been independently reported in women with depression. There is a serious dearth of literature on the incidence of childhood abuse among women with depression from India.Objectives & aimsWe investigated and compared the incidence of childhood abuse (overall) – physical, emotional and sexual (individual components)- among women seeking treatment for unipolar depression (UD) compared to healthy women (HW).MethodsWe compared the data of women diagnosed with UD (n = 134) from a larger pool of women seeking treatment for psychiatric disorders from our hospital (n = 609) with HW (n = 100) for the purpose of this study. The participants were screened using the MINI International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI) and for childhood abuse using the ISPCAN Child Abuse Screening Tool - Retrospective (ICAST)-R. The incidence of childhood abuse between the two groups was compared using the Chi-squared test.ResultsThe UD women have significantly more childhood emotional abuse than HW (69.5% vs 30.5%; χ2 = 4.819, P < 0.05). There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups on overall abuse, physical or sexual abuse (all P > 0.16).ConclusionsConsistent with world literature, significantly more childhood emotional abuse was seen among Indian women with UD compared to HW. It is likely that that repeated emotional abuse in childhood leads to negative attributions among children, later getting generalised to life events resulting in depression in adulthood.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Download Full-text

Childhood maltreatment history and attention bias variability in healthy adult women: role of inflammation and the BDNF Val66Met genotype

Translational Psychiatry ◽

10.1038/s41398-021-01247-4 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Hiroaki Hori ◽

Mariko Itoh ◽

Mingming Lin ◽

Fuyuko Yoshida ◽

Madoka Niwa ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Childhood Trauma ◽

Childhood Maltreatment ◽

Emotional Abuse ◽

Healthy Adult ◽

Negative Impact ◽

Attention Bias ◽

Trend Test ◽

Adult Women ◽

Childhood Emotional Abuse ◽

Attention Bias Variability

AbstractChildhood maltreatment has been associated with greater attention bias to emotional information, but the findings are controversial. Recently, a novel index of attention bias, i.e., attention bias variability (ABV), has been developed to better capture trauma-related attentional dysfunction. However, ABV in relation to childhood trauma has not been studied. Here, we examined the association of childhood maltreatment history with attention bias/ABV in 128 healthy adult women. Different types of childhood maltreatment were assessed with the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. Attention bias/ABV was measured by the dot-probe task. Possible mechanisms whereby childhood maltreatment affects attention bias/ABV were also explored, focusing on blood proinflammatory markers and the BDNF Val66Met polymorphism. We observed a significant positive correlation between childhood emotional abuse and ABV (P = 0.002). Serum high-sensitivity tumor necrosis factor-α levels were significantly positively correlated with ABV (P < 0.001), but not with childhood maltreatment. Jonckheere–Terpstra trend test showed a significant tendency toward greater ABV with increasing numbers of the BDNF Met alleles (P = 0.021). A two-way analysis of variance further revealed that the genotype-by-emotional abuse interaction for ABV was significant (P = 0.022); individuals with the Val/Met and Met/Met genotypes exhibited even greater ABV when childhood emotional abuse was present. These results indicate that childhood emotional abuse can have a long-term negative impact on emotional attention control. Increased inflammation may be involved in the mechanism of ABV, possibly independently of childhood maltreatment. The BDNF Met allele may dose-dependently increase ABV by interacting with childhood emotional abuse.

Download Full-text

Juvenile Entry Into Prostitution

Violence Against Women ◽

10.1177/1077801212453140 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 18 (5) ◽

pp. 562-579 ◽

Cited By ~ 72

Author(s):

Dominique E. Roe-Sepowitz

Keyword(s):

Emotional Abuse ◽

Sexual Exploitation ◽

Future Research ◽

Adult Women ◽

Unique Role ◽

Younger Age ◽

History Of ◽

Childhood Emotional Abuse ◽

Age Of Entry

This study seeks to assess the nature and extent of childhood emotional abuse among adult women in a residential prostitution-exiting program. Regression analyses were conducted to assess the unique role of childhood emotional abuse in the prediction of age of entry into prostitution. Childhood emotional abuse, a history of running away during childhood, and participating in survival-based exchanges of sex were significantly associated with the commercial sexual exploitation of girls younger than age 18, while childhood emotional abuse contributed to predicting a younger age of entry. Results are discussed regarding policy, prevention, and future research.

Download Full-text