A Case-control Study Of The Relationship Between Childhood Adverse Family Experiences And Adult Mental Disorders

Objective:To analyze the relationship between adverse family experiences in childhood and adults' mental disorders,which offers reference to further understand the pathological mechanism of mental disorders and to conduct early intervention.Method:According to the case-control study design,those patients with severe mental disorders who seeking inpatients service in three psychiatric hospital in Ningxia,and those patients who diagnosed with common mental disorders in community as case group.And those who never met any mental disorders in community were selected as control group depend on the frequency matching in gender and age.272 participants in each three groups(with a total sample of 816)were included in final analysis.ICD-10 criteria was applied in the diagnosis of mental disorders through structural clinical mental examination.The adverse family experience was measured using Childhood Adversed Experience Checklist questionnaire.Logistic regression model was applied to analyze the relationship between adverse experience of childhood and mental disorders.Results:1.Patients with severe mental disorders mainly are the schizophrenic illness,which accounts for 87.87% of total cases.The average age among severe mental disorder group,control group and group of common mental disorder were 36.0±10.9 years old,36.7±11.1 years old and36.5±1.8 years old respectively.The three groups have significant difference on the proportion of Hui and Han ethnicities(?2=139.63,p<0.001),and same was true in the degree of education(?2=68.85,p<0.001).2.The proportions of incomplete family structure(21.5%),family violence(26.1%),being neglected(27.6%),parents who commit a crime and/or be imprisoned(3.1%),parents who has mental disorders(24.0%),and parents with substance abuse history(21.0%)are higher in severe mental disorder group than in the control group(P<0.05).After controlling of demographicalvariables through unconditional logistic stepwise regression method,the maltreated(OR=3.06,95%CI:2.29-4.10),being neglected(OR=28.55,95%CI:10.14-80.39),family violence(OR=3.60,95%CI:2.58-5.02),incomplete family structure(OR=11.65,95%CI:5.12-26.53),parental substance abuse(OR=15.17,95%CI:5.33-43.21),parents who have metal disorder(OR=2.28,95%CI:1.37-3.80),any one adverse childhood experience exposure(OR=6.01,95%CI:3.70-9.78),two or more adverse childhood experiences exposure(OR=22.34,95%CI:11.69-42.71)were identified as risk factors for severe mental disoders.3.Those who withcommon mental disorders have higher proportion of incomplete family structure(13.2%)than the control group(P<0.05).After controlling of demographical variables through unconditional logistic stepwise regression method,the incomplete family structure persisted as the risk factors of the common mental disorders(OR=5.97,95%CI:2.43-14.64.)Conclusion:There were significant association detected between several adverse family experiences in childhood and severe mental disorder;while,the incomplete family structure was associated with common mental disorders.The study indicated that the adverse family experience in childhood possibly had a stronger association with severe mental disorders than with common mental disorders.