Child Maltreatment and Depression: A Meta-Analysis of Studies Using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire

Course overview

Course Description: This course is based upon material published in the Human Health Services public access journal and is available as an open-access article. Background-Researchers have documented that child maltreatment is associated with adverse long-term consequences for mental health, including increased risk for depression. Attempts to conduct meta-analyses of the association between different forms of child maltreatment and depressive symptomatology in adulthood, however, have been limited by the wide range of definitions of child maltreatment in the literature. Objective-We sought to meta-analyze a single, widely-used dimensional measure of child maltreatment, the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, with respect to depression diagnosis and symptom scores. Participants and Setting: 192 unique samples consisting of 68,830 individuals. Methods-We explored the association between total scores and scores from specific forms of child maltreatment (i.e., emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional neglect, and physical neglect) and depression using a random-effects meta-analysis. Results-We found that higher child maltreatment scores were associated with a diagnosis of depression (g=1.07:95% CI, 0.95-1.19) and with higher depression symptom scores (Z=.35: 95% CI, .32-.38). Moreover, although each type of child maltreatment was positively associated with depression diagnosis and scores, there was variability in the size of the effects, with emotional abuse and emotional neglect demonstrating the strongest associations. Conclusions-These analyses provide important evidence of the link between child maltreatment and depression, and highlight the particularly larger association with emotional maltreatment in childhood. This course on child maltreatment is designed for social workers, professional counselors, psychologists, nurses, and substance abuse counselors, who do clinical work. In addition, this course is appropriate for beginning, intermediate and advanced level practitioners who wish to develop their knowledge of child maltreatment. The course material includes a literature review of depression in youth. It may also be useful for licensed clinicians who require continuing clinical education courses for license renewal. The course is based on a journal article that includes research. It contains statistical analysis and data that some clinicians enjoy reading and others do not. A significant benefit of reading research-based articles for continuing education is they provide practitioners with the latest findings in their field. Authors: Humphreys, LeMoult, Wear, Piersiak, Lee, Gotlib Learning Objectives: This course will provide the practitioner with detailed information regarding child maltreatment. Specifically, a professional will: Describe the prevalence of child maltreatment in America Identify the relationship between child maltreatment and depression scores Recognize the impact depression can have on young children Distinguish between forms of maltreatment Citation: Humphreys, K. L., LeMoult, J., Wear, J. G., Piersiak, H. A., Lee, A., & Gotlib, I. H. (2020). Child maltreatment and depression: A meta-analysis of studies using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. Child abuse & neglect, 102, 104361.