‘Adverse childhood experience’ linked to later depression

Almost one-quarter of men and women aged in their 50s and 60s were found to have suffered an ‘adverse childhood experience’, with research showing higher odds of depressive symptoms later in life among that group.

A newly published study looked at baseline data from 2,047 men and women aged 50 to 69 in the north Cork town of Mitchelstown and found that 23.7% of participants reported at least one adverse childhood experience (ACE), categorised under three headings: abuse (emotional, physical and sexual abuse), neglect (emotional and physical neglect); and household dysfunction (parental separation/divorce, violence against mother, household substance abuse, household mental illness and incarceration of household member).

The data, dating from 2010/11, were from randomly selected patients attending the Livinghealth Clinic in Mitchelstown and asked questions regarding later life experiences of depressive symptoms.

It found that indications of major depressive symptoms “was significantly higher among participants who reported ACE compared with participants who did not” — 14.1% versus 6%.

The research also found that good social supports could help to “buffer” the effects of depression and that the prevalence of poor levels of social support was also higher among participants who reported ACEs — 19.6% versus 10.7%.

According to the research: “Participants who reported ACEs tended to be younger, separated/divorced, have GMS cover, reported long-term illness/disability and had attained tertiary education.”

The study, entitled ‘Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and later-life depression: perceived social support as a potential protective factor’, has just been published by BMJ Journals and was conducted by researchers from the School of Medicine, the Department of General Practice, and the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College Cork.

According to the study: “Prevalence of depressive symptoms and poor PSS [level of social support] were substantially higher among participants who reported ACE compared with those who did not.

“These findings suggest that exposure to childhood adversity could affect a multitude of factors across the lifespan.”

The study found that the odds of depressive symptoms among those reporting abuse, versus those who didn’t, were more than five times greater in individuals reporting low social support levels, three times greater in those reporting moderate support levels, but only slightly increased in those reporting high levels of social support.

One of the authors, Darren Dahly, principal statistician and senior lecturer at the HRB Clinical Research Facility Cork, said: “People who self-reported any ACE were more likely to also report experiencing depressive symptoms. However, the strength of that association varied depending on the level of perceived social support they reported.

“So a person who experienced an ACE but also reported high PSS [spcial supports] only had a slight uptick on the probability of reporting depressive symptoms; while a person reporting any ACE with a low PSS had a much more substantial increase in risk.”

He said the strongest interpretation was that the data was consistent with the idea that improving social supports might mitigate the impact that abuse has on depression, although he said it was difficult to draw any strong conclusions.

See bmjopen.bmj.com