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Childhood emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, and diagnoses of depressive and anxiety disorders in adult psychiatric outpatients
Author(s) -
Gibb Brandon E.,
Chelminski Iwona,
Zimmerman Mark
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
depression and anxiety
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.634
H-Index - 129
eISSN - 1520-6394
pISSN - 1091-4269
DOI - 10.1002/da.20238
Subject(s) - psychopathology , sexual abuse , psychological abuse , psychology , psychiatry , clinical psychology , depression (economics) , anxiety , physical abuse , poison control , child abuse , suicide prevention , medicine , medical emergency , economics , macroeconomics
Although a number of theorists have hypothesized a link between negative experiences during childhood (e.g., abuse) and the presence of psychopathology in adults, little is known about the relative specificity of childhood emotional, physical, or sexual abuse to different forms of psychopathology. In this study, we hypothesized that adult psychiatric outpatients' reports of childhood emotional abuse would exhibit a specific relationship with diagnoses of depression. Analyses partially supported our hypothesis. Specifically, diagnoses of major depression were significantly more strongly related to reports of childhood emotional abuse than to physical or sexual abuse. However, the same effect was observed for social phobia. In addition, patients with major depression reported equivalent levels of childhood emotional abuse as patients with social phobia, but lower levels of emotional abuse than those with posttraumatic stress disorder. Depression and Anxiety 24:256–263, 2007. Published 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.