1. Mediating effects of parent-child relationship on the association between childhood maltreatment and depressive symptoms among adolescents.
- Author
-
Song L, Fang P, Jiang Z, Li S, Song X, and Wan Y
- Subjects
- Adolescent, Child, China epidemiology, Female, Humans, Male, Parent-Child Relations, Surveys and Questionnaires, Child Abuse, Depression epidemiology, Depression etiology
- Abstract
Background: Depressive symptoms are the most common mental disorder among adolescents, and its prevalence has been increasing in recent years. Although childhood maltreatment is a contributing factor to depressive symptoms among adolescents, the underlying mechanism of how this factor causes depressive symptoms is unclear., Objective: This study aimed to investigate the mediating effects of parent-child relationship on the association between childhood maltreatment and depressive symptoms among adolescents and to identify how sex and only child status affect this association., Methods: A total of 14,500 middle school students were randomly selected from four cities (Shenzhen, Zhengzhou, Nanchang, and Guiyang) in China. A survey questionnaire was administered to collect information on childhood maltreatment, parent-child relationship, and depressive symptoms. Pearson's correlation analysis was used in analyzing the relationship, Bootstrap method was used to test the mediating effects. A moderated mediation analysis has been used to determine the moderated mediation effect., Results: Childhood maltreatment significantly negatively correlated with parent-child relationship and positively correlated with depressive symptoms (P < 0.001). The indirect effect of parent-child relationship accounted for 20.60% of the total effect between childhood maltreatment and depressive symptoms in all respondents and differed by sex (boys, 17.00%; girls, 25.23%) and only child status (only child, 15.61%; child with siblings, 23.49%). Besides, the indirect effect of the mediation model was moderated by sex and only child status., Conclusions: Childhood maltreatment increased the risk of depressive symptoms, and this relationship was partially mediated by parent-child relationship, sex and only child status have moderated the indirect relationship. These findings showed efforts aimed at enhancing the parent-child relationship may prevent or reduce the prevalence of depressive symptoms among adolescents, especially in girls and children with siblings., (Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)
- Published
- 2022
- Full Text
- View/download PDF