1. Patterns of exposure to adverse childhood experiences and their associations with mental health: a survey of 1346 university students in East Asia
- Author
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Grace W.K. Ho, Thanos Karatzias, Daniel Bressington, Sachiko Inoue, P. J. Yang, Wai Tong Chien, Philip Hyland, and Athena C. Y. Chan
- Subjects
Male ,China ,Health (social science) ,Social Psychology ,Adolescent ,Universities ,Epidemiology ,Taiwan ,Violence ,Odds ,03 medical and health sciences ,Young Adult ,0302 clinical medicine ,Global mental health ,Japan ,Adverse Childhood Experiences ,Surveys and Questionnaires ,Medicine ,Humans ,East Asia ,030212 general & internal medicine ,Young adult ,Students ,Depression (differential diagnoses) ,business.industry ,Depression ,Mental Disorders ,Mental health ,Latent class model ,030227 psychiatry ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,Mental Health ,Anxiety ,Hong Kong ,Female ,medicine.symptom ,business ,Clinical psychology - Abstract
Introduction: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) constitute a signifcant global mental health burden. Prior studies typically investigated the impact of ACEs on mental health using a cumulative risk approach; most ACEs studies were also conducted in Western settings. Purpose: This study aimed to examine ACEs using a pattern-based approach and assess their associations with mental health outcomes by early adulthood in East Asia. Methods: The present study included measures of exposure to 13 categories of ACEs, depression, anxiety, maladjustment, and posttraumatic stress in a sample of 1346 university students from Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, and Japan. Results: Latent class analysis indicated three distinct patterns of ACE exposure: Class 1: Low ACEs (76.0%); Class 2: Household Violence (20.6%); and Class 3: Household Dysfunction (3.4%). Those representing Class 3 had signifcantly more ACEs compared with those in Classes 1 or 2. Controlling for age and sex, those in Class 2 reported signifcantly higher depression and maladjustment symptoms compared with those in Class 1; both Classes 2 and 3 had signifcantly higher anxiety symptoms and odds for meeting diagnostic criteria for posttraumatic stress disorders compared with those in Class 1. Conclusions: Study fndings suggest that young adults’ mental health, at least under certain contexts, is more closely linked with the nature and pattern of ACE co-occurrence, rather than the number of ACEs.
- Published
- 2019