Complex effects of childhood abuse, affective temperament, and subjective social status on depressive symptoms of adult volunteers from the community

Motoki Higashiyama,1 Taito Hayashida,1 Keisuke Sakuta,1 Yota Fujimura,2 Jiro Masuya,3 Masahiko Ichiki,1 Hajime Tanabe,4 Ichiro Kusumi,5 Takeshi Inoue11Department of Psychiatry, Tokyo Medical University, Tokyo 160-0023, Japan; 2Department of Psychiatry, Tokyo Medical University Hachioji Medical Center, Tokyo 193-0998, Japan; 3Department of Psychiatry, Tokyo Medical University Ibaraki Medical Center, Ibaraki 300-0395, Japan; 4Department of Clinical Human Sciences, Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Shizuoka University, Shizuoka 422-8529, Japan; 5Department of Psychiatry, Hokkaido University Graduate School of Medicine, Sapporo 060-8638, JapanCorrespondence: Takeshi InoueDepartment of Psychiatry, Tokyo Medical University, 6-7-1 Nishishinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160-0023, JapanTel +81 33 342 6111Fax +81 33 340 4499Email tinoue@tokyo-med.ac.jpBackground: How subjective social status is associated with childhood abuse and affective temperament in the mechanism of depressive symptom exacerbation remains unknown. In this study, we investigated how the complex effects of subjective social status, childhood abuse, and affective temperament influence depressive symptoms in adulthood.Methods: Self-report questionnaires were distributed to 853 adult volunteers between January and August 2014. Of them, 404 people gave full consent and returned complete anonymous responses. The following five questionnaires were analyzed: demographic information, Patient Health Questionnaire-9, subjective social status, Child Abuse and Trauma Scale, and Temperament Evaluation of Memphis, Pisa, Paris and San Diego autoquestionnaire. The associations between the scores were analyzed by structural equation modeling. This study was conducted with approval from the ethics committees of Tokyo Medical University and Hokkaido University Hospital.Results: Covariance structure analysis demonstrated that childhood abuse and subjective social status did not have a direct effect on adulthood depressive symptoms. Childhood abuse had direct effects on subjective social status and affective temperament and childhood abuse indirectly affected adulthood depressive symptoms through subjective social status and affective temperament. Subjective social status also affected depressive symptoms through an effect on affective temperament. This model explained 43% of the variability in depressive symptoms and the fitness of this model was good.Conclusion: Regarding childhood abuse and adulthood depressive symptoms, subjective social status as well as affective temperament may be mediators. The results of this study are expected to contribute to the elucidation of the mechanism of depression.Keywords: childhood abuse, subjective social status, affective temperament, depression, covariance structure analysis