Open AccessMediating and moderating effects of social support in the study of child abuse and adult physical and mental health.
Author(s) -
Todd I. Herrenkohl,
Hyunggu Jung,
J. Bart Klika,
W. Alex Mason,
Eric C. Brown,
Rebecca T. Leeb,
Roy C. Herrenkohl
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
american journal of orthopsychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.959
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1939-0025
pISSN - 0002-9432
DOI - 10.1037/ort0000136
Subject(s) - moderation , psycinfo , mental health , psychology , social support , child abuse , physical abuse , structural equation modeling , clinical psychology , poison control , psychological abuse , longitudinal study , suicide prevention , construct (python library) , developmental psychology , psychiatry , medicine , medline , social psychology , environmental health , statistics , mathematics , pathology , political science , law , computer science , programming language
A number of cross-sectional and a few longitudinal studies have shown a developmental relationship between child abuse and adult physical and mental health. Published findings also suggest that social support can lessen the risk of adverse outcomes for some abused children. However, few studies have investigated whether social support mediates or moderates the relationship between child abuse and adult physical and mental health. Structural equation modeling was used to examine data on these topics from a longitudinal study of more than 30 years. While a latent construct of physical and emotional child abuse did not predict adult health outcomes directly, child abuse did predict outcomes indirectly through social support. A test of variable moderation for child abuse and social support was nonsignificant. Results suggest that social support may help explain the association between child abuse and health outcomes at midlife. Implications of the findings for prevention and treatment are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record