1.5 Mental Health Disorders Commonly Associated with Different Types of Maltreatment
Christina Fodtchouk
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Psychiatric Outcomes and Child Maltreatment
- Know which subsections of each of the main mental health disorders are considered as well
- Know the general definition and symptoms to the psychiatric measures focused on (anxiety, PTSD, and depression) and the researcher’s definition of the maltreatment measures observed (sexual abuse, physical abuse, and neglect)
- Know the highest associations found between the particular psychiatric disorder and form of maltreatment
Understanding and studying mental health disorders, particularly attempting to settle what exactly is the cause of the decline in an individual’s psychiatric state, is quite difficult. During the research, it is found to be a result of the inconsistencies within the definitions of the various forms of maltreatment, potential for underreporting, no clear and direct cause and effect, as it fluctuates and changes over time, the risk of countless factors that may possibly affect an individual’s mental health state, for instance, confounding factors (age, gender, socioeconomic status, relationship status, etc.), society, the participants not being honest, bias during selection and response, and so much more. Overall, there is just not enough research and studies conducted that go in such depth of understanding the associations between childhood maltreatment and mental health decline in adulthood.
In this study, the researchers went as far as to focus on specific subsections of the mental health disorder, to be more thorough, and explicitly state the definitions of the different forms of maltreatment, so that future researchers and readers are on the same page of what exactly each of them stands for; the common basis on which they will be classified off of.
General Definition of the Psychiatric Outcome Measures – Referring to American Psychiatric Association
- Depression: negatively impacts your emotions, thoughts, and actions, and prohibits you from fulfilling your daily tasks properly
- Some Common Symptoms:
- Loss of interest in things that once made you happy
- Feeling worthless
- Feeling guilty
- Loss of energy
- Change in appetite
- Some Common Symptoms:
- Anxiety: begins to immensely avoid certain things and people in life as it prohibits them from fulfilling their daily tasks in peace, with themselves and their surroundings
- Some Common Symptoms:
- Very intense feelings of nervousness and anxiety
- Excessive fear and anxiousness
- Avoiding tasks, places, and people
- Muscle tension
- Some Common Symptoms:
- PTSD: individuals have experienced and/or witnessed a traumatic event that hinders their normal daily activity, relationships, emotions, thoughts, and sleep
- Some Common Symptoms:
- Repeatedly reliving past events
- Intrusive thoughts-ongoing involuntary memories or thoughts
- Avoiding things, people, and places that cause flashbacks of the traumatic event
- Inability to recollect information during traumatic events leading to atypical beliefs
- Outbursts of anger, being reckless, and easily irritable
- Some Common Symptoms:
Study’s Definition of the Maltreatment Measures
- Sexual Abuse: having someone unwillingly part take in inappropriate sexual acts
- Physical Abuse: purposefully inflicting injuries on another individual
- Emotional Abuse: purposefully using certain actions and words to attack an individual causing emotional trauma
- Neglect: Providing a lack of sufficient conditions that are necessary for healthy development physically and emotionally
Associations Found From the 67% That Completed the 30 Year Follow Up
Depression disorder was observed to have the strongest association with physical abuse.
-
- Any notification throughout the entire life (p-value was 0.005)
- Physical abuse (p<0.0001)
- Emotional abuse (p-value was 0.003)
- Any proof (p-value was 0.004)
-
- Physical abuse (p-value was 0.002)
- Emotional abuse (p-value was 0.034)
- > 1 proven (p-value was 0.004)
- Multiple types (p-value was 0.014)
-
- Any notification throughout the entire life (p-value was 0.005)
Anxiety disorder was clearly observed to have the strongest association with neglect through substantiated cases.
-
- Any notification (p-value was 0.075)
- Emotional abuse (p-value was 0.020)
- Neglect (p-value was 0.037)
- Any proof (p-value was 0.007)
- Neglect (p-value was 0.008)
- >1 proven (p-value was 0.016)
- Multiple types (p-value was 0.093)
- Any notification (p-value was 0.075)
PTSD was clearly observed to have the strongest association with sexual abuse through substantiated cases.
-
- Any notification (p-value <0.0001)
- Physical abuse (p-value was 0.007)
- Emotional abuse (p-value was 0.001)
- Sexual abuse (p-value<0.0001)
- Any proof (p-value was 0.021)
- Sexual abuse (p-value was 0.022)
- >1 proven (p-value was 0.017)
- Multiple types (p-value was 0.032)
- Any notification (p-value <0.0001)
KEY TERMS
- MDD: the same as depression disorder, but more intense symptoms that last for a lot longer (Mayo Clinic, 2018)
- Dysthymic Disorder: a chronic form of depression that is persisting, but not as severe as MDD (Mayo Clinic, 2018)
- Generalized anxiety disorder: ongoing stress and worry that is hard to control and interferes with daily tasks (Mayo Clinic, 2017)
- Panic disorder: unexpected panic attacks that persist to occur and are scared of another one occurring (Mayo Clinic, 2018)
- Agoraphobia: a form of anxiety where you avoid and are scared of specific places that may cause feelings of panic and helplessness (Mayo Clinic, 2017)
- Social phobia: everyday interaction with other people causes immense stress, anxiety, and fear of being judged (Mayo Clinic, 2021)
- Specific phobias: immense fear of objects and situations that pose no harm (Mayo Clinic, 2016)
- P-value: the probability of the false hypothesis being true. If the p-value>0.05 then the findings are not statistically significant and the false hypothesis is accepted, if the p-value</=0.05 then the findings are statistically significant and the false hypothesis is rejected