The Relationship Between Childhood Maltreatment And Adolescent Internalizing Problems:The Influence Of Environmental And Temporal Factors

Childhood maltreatment is the global concern of whole society.Adolescents with a history of childhood maltreatment could develop a range of internalizing problems,including major depression and anxiety disorders.Previous studies mainly focused on the relationship of overall childhood maltreatment on depression and anxiety or used linear regression analyses to explore the influence of specific types of childhood maltreatment,which would occur multicollinearity inevitably.Although most studies have considered the potential role of personal or environmental factors in the relationship between childhood maltreatment and internalizing problems,few have examined these two factors simultaneously,nevertheless the interactions between them.Besides,most studies discussed the impact of the occurrence or severity of childhood maltreatment on internalizing problems but ignored the other important dimension:timing.Therefore,this paper intends to use Relative Weight Analysis(RWA)to figure out the independent contributions of different maltreatment types and identify the core predictors that affect internalizing problems.Then we examined the interactions between adolescents’individual and environmental factors to explore the mechanisms that core childhood maltreatment affects internalizing problems.Finally,the study further explored the effects of the temporal characteristics of childhood maltreatment(onset and duration)on internalizing problems.This paper included the following three studies.Study 1 used RWA to decompose the total variance predicted in a regression model(R~2)into weights reflecting the proportional contribution of each childhood maltreatment type,and identify the core types of maltreatment that affect internalizing problems.The results found that emotional abuse and neglect were the strongest two predictors of adolescent anxiety and depression,therefore the sequent studies focused on these two variables.Based on the Bioecological Theory,Study 2 aimed to investigate how certain factors in each system would interact with emotional abuse and emotional neglect and impact internalizing problems.This study took emotional abuse and emotional neglect as independent variables,anxiety and depression as dependent variables,self-esteem(individual level)as a mediating variable,and friend support and other support(microsystem)as moderating variables to conduct a moderated mediation model,as well as tested the multigroup analysis with the status of left-behind(exosystem)and gender(macrosystem)as grouping variables,respectively.The results found that self-esteem partially mediated the relationship between emotional abuse and neglect,and anxiety and depression.And friend support moderated the mediating paths of emotional abuse affecting depression through self-esteem.However,the multigroup analyses found no significant differences in the moderated mediation model between left-and non-left-behind adolescents,nor females and males.Study 3 further focused on the effects of the temporal characteristics of emotional abuse and neglect on adolescents’internalizing problems.Study 3a identified the relational mode of emotional abuse and emotional neglect affecting anxiety and depression using exploratory analysis.The results indicated that the onset timing of emotional abuse and neglect had a linear relationship,while the duration had an inverted U-shaped relationship with internalizing problems.Study 3b further tested whether the onset timing and duration of emotional abuse and emotional neglect would have different effects on adolescents’internalizing problems and the mechanisms of their effects.In Study 3b,we conducted two moderated mediation models,in which the dependent variables,mediator,moderators and grouping variables were the same as in Study 2,and used temporal characteristics of emotional abuse and emotional neglect as independent variables,respectively.Results found that both the onset and duration of emotional abuse and emotional neglect could influence anxiety and depressive symptoms through self-esteem,and friend support acted as moderators on some pathways.Multigroup analyses indicated no modeled differences between left-/non-left-behind adolescents and females or males,respectively.This paper comprehensively explored the relationship between childhood maltreatment and adolescent internalizing problems(anxiety and depression).The findings suggest that we should not only focus on how the severity of emotional abuse and neglect influence mental health,but also consider time characteristics,as well as the personal and environmental factors in an integrated manner.These remind us that while focusing on the emotional feedback to adolescents,the sensitive period of adolescent development is equally worthy of attention.And we should intervene with maltreated adolescents from multiple aspects,such as personal and other environmental aspects,to improve their ability to cope with childhood trauma.