The impact of childhood abuse and neglect on adult mental health: A prospective study
The impact of childhood abuse and neglect on adult mental health: A prospective study
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DOI：
10.2307/3090177
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发表时间：
2001-06-01
影响因子：
5
通讯作者：
White, HR
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Horwitz, AV;Widom, CS;White, HR
本文考察了儿童时期三种类型的受害行为--性虐待、身体虐待和忽视--对成人终生心理健康测量的影响。与依赖于童年受害回顾的研究不同，这项研究使用的是从1970年左右中西部城市有记录的儿童虐待和忽视的法庭案件记录中收集的前瞻性样本。这些受试者在大约20年后接受了采访。此外，这项研究还将641名虐待和忽视组成员的结果与510名没有虐待或忽视记录的匹配对照组的结果进行了比较。结果表明，童年时期被虐待和忽视的男性成年后比对照组有更多的恶劣心境和反社会人格障碍，但他们没有更多的酒精问题被滥用，被忽视的女性比对照组更多地出现恶劣心境、反社会人格障碍和酒精问题的症状。然而，在控制了应激性生活事件之后，童年受害对任何一生的心理健康结果几乎没有直接影响。这项研究表明，采取一种方法的重要性，将童年受害置于其他生活应激源的背景下，并考虑到生命过程中的预期变化。
This paper examines the impact of three types of victimization in childhood-sexual abuse, physical abuse, and neglect-on lifetime measures ofmental health among adults. In contrast to research that relies on retrospective recall of childhood victimization, this work uses a prospective sample gathered from records of documented court cases of childhood abuse and neglect in a midwestern city around 1970. These subjects were interviewed about twenty years later. In addition, this research compares outcomes of the 641 members of the abuse and neglect group with a matched control group of 510 persons who did not have documented cases of abuse or neglect. The results indicate that men who were abused and neglected as children have more dysthymia and antisocial personality disorder as adults than matched controls, but they did not have more alcohol problems abused and neglected women report more symptoms of dysthymia, antisocial personality disorder, and alcohol problems than controls. After controlling for stressful life events, however childhood victimization had little direct impact on any lifetime mental health outcome. This research indicates the importance ofadopting an approach that places childhood victimization in the context of other life stressors and of prospective changes over the life course.