Childhood trauma and depression: gender differences in exposure and disease burden
People around the world suffer from the physical and psychological consequences of abuse and neglect during childhood and adolescence – experiences that are collectively referred to as ‘childhood trauma’. “In our study, we investigated whether the various forms of childhood trauma were associated to varying degrees with the burden of depression in adulthood, and whether there were any gender-specific differences,” says Maja Völker, a PhD student in the Department of Genetic Epidemiology in Psychiatry at the Central Institute of Mental Health (CIMH).
The researchers, led by the ZI, analysed data from 159,045 participants in the German National Cohort (NAKO) aged between 19 and 72, just under half of whom were women. Just under 26 per cent of NAKO participants reported at least one form of childhood trauma. 13 per cent of respondents stated that they had experienced depression at some point in their lives (women: 17.7 per cent; men: 10.1 per cent). 7.5 per cent of participants reported current symptoms of depression (women: 9.0 per cent; men: 5.9 per cent).
Analysis of the data revealed clear links between childhood trauma and mental health: people who had experienced adverse childhood experiences were more than twice as likely to develop depression at some point in their lives. For current – that is, ongoing – depressive symptoms, the risk was almost three times as high. The links between childhood abuse and the burden of disease in adulthood were particularly pronounced in cases of emotional abuse and emotional neglect.