Dataset Information

Child maltreatment, peer victimization, and social anxiety in adulthood: a cross-sectional study in a treatment-seeking sample.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:Childhood adversities, especially emotional abuse, emotional neglect, and peer victimization are considered to be crucial risk factors for social anxiety disorder (SAD). We investigated whether particular forms of retrospectively recalled childhood adversities are specifically associated with SAD in adulthood or whether we find similar links in other anxiety or depressive disorders. METHODS:Prevalences of adversities assessed with the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) and a questionnaire of stressful social experiences (FBS) were determined in N?=?1091 outpatients. Adversity severities among patients with SAD only (n?=?25), specific phobia only (n?=?18), and generalized anxiety disorder only (n?=?19) were compared. Differences between patients with anxiety disorders only (n?=?62) and depressive disorders only (n?=?239) as well as between SAD with comorbid depressive disorders (n?=?143) and SAD only were tested. RESULTS:None of the adversity types were found to be specifically associated with SAD and severities did not differ among anxiety disorders but patients with depressive disorders reported more severe emotional abuse, physical abuse, and sexual abuse than patients with anxiety disorders. SAD patients with a comorbid depressive disorder also reported more severe adversities across all types compared to SAD only. CONCLUSION:Findings indicate that particular forms of recalled childhood adversities are not specifically associated with SAD in adulthood. Previously established links with SAD may be better explained by comorbid depressive symptoms.

SUBMITTER: Bruhl A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6935074 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Child maltreatment, peer victimization, and social anxiety in adulthood: a cross-sectional study in a treatment-seeking sample.

Brühl Antonia A Kley Hanna H Grocholewski Anja A Neuner Frank F Heinrichs Nina N

BMC psychiatry 20191227 1

<h4>Background</h4>Childhood adversities, especially emotional abuse, emotional neglect, and peer victimization are considered to be crucial risk factors for social anxiety disorder (SAD). We investigated whether particular forms of retrospectively recalled childhood adversities are specifically associated with SAD in adulthood or whether we find similar links in other anxiety or depressive disorders.<h4>Methods</h4>Prevalences of adversities assessed with the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ ...[more]

PMID: 31882002

Similar Datasets

Project description:IntroductionChild maltreatment (CM) is associated with mental and physical health disorders in adulthood. Some studies have identified elevated markers of systemic inflammation in adult survivors of CM, and inflammation may mediate the association between CM and later health problems. However, there are methodological inconsistencies in studies of the association between CM and systemic inflammation and findings are conflicting. We performed a systematic review to examine the association of CM with systemic inflammation in adults.MethodsA pre-registered systematic review was performed following PRISMA guidelines. Medline, Embase, Scopus and PsychInfo were searched for studies of the association of CM with blood markers of inflammation in adults. Quality was assessed using the Crowe Critical Appraisal Tool. We had intended to perform a meta-analysis, but this was not possible due to variation in study design and reporting.ResultsForty-four articles met criteria for inclusion in the review. The most widely reported biomarkers were C-Reactive Protein (CRP) (n = 27), interleukin-6 (IL-6) (n = 24) and Tumour Necrosis Factor-alpha (TNF-a) (n = 17). Three studies were prospective (all relating to CRP) and the remainder were retrospective. 86% of studies were based in high income countries. In the prospective studies, CM was associated with elevated CRP in adulthood. Results of retrospective studies were conflicting. Methodological issues relating to the construct of CM, methods of analysis, and accounting for confounding or mediating variables (particularly Body Mass Index) may contribute to the uncertainty in the field.ConclusionsThere is some robust evidence from prospective studies that CM is associated with elevated CRP in adulthood. We have identified significant methodological inconsistencies in the literature and have proposed measures that future researchers could employ to improve consistency across studies. Further prospective, longitudinal, research using robust and comparable measures of CM with careful consideration of confounding and mediating variables is required to bring clarity to this field.

Project description:Peer victimization (or bullying) is a known risk factor for depression, especially among youth. However, the mechanisms connecting victimization experience to depression symptoms remains unknown. As depression is known to be associated with neural blunting to monetary rewards, aberrant responsiveness to social rewards may be a key deficit connecting socially stressful experiences with later depression. We, therefore, sought to determine whether adolescents' experiences with social stress would be related to their current response to social rewards over less socially relevant monetary rewards. Neural responses to monetary and social rewards were measured using event-related potentials (ERPs) to peer acceptance and rejection feedback (Island Getaway task) and to monetary reward and loss feedback (Doors task) in a sample of 56 late adolescents/emerging young adults followed longitudinally since preschool. In the Island Getaway task, participants voted whether to "keep" or "kick out" each co-player, providing an index of prosocial behavior, and then received feedback about how each player voted for the participant. Analyses tested whether early and recent peer victimization was related to response to rewards (peer acceptance or monetary gains), residualized for response to losses (peer rejection or monetary losses) using the reward positivity (RewP) component. Findings indicated that both experiencing greater early and greater recent peer victimization were significantly associated with participants casting fewer votes to keep other adolescents ("Keep" votes) and that greater early peer victimization was associated with reduced neural response to peer acceptance. Early and recent peer victimization were significantly more associated with neural response to social than monetary rewards. Together, these findings suggest that socially injurious experiences such as peer victimization, especially those occurring early in childhood, relate to two distinct but important findings: that early victimization is associated with later reduced response to peer acceptance, and is associated with later tendency to reject peers. Findings also suggest that there is evidence of specificity to reward processing of different types; thus, future research should expand studies of reward processing beyond monetary rewards to account for the possibility that individual differences may be related to other, more relevant, reward types.

Dataset Information

Child maltreatment, peer victimization, and social anxiety in adulthood: a cross-sectional study in a treatment-seeking sample.

Publications

Child maltreatment, peer victimization, and social anxiety in adulthood: a cross-sectional study in a treatment-seeking sample.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure