‘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.