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Age-Varying Associations between Child Maltreatment, Depressive Symptoms, and Frequent Heavy Episodic Drinking

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Abstract

Child maltreatment represents a prevalent public health issue that has been shown to predict both adolescent and young adult depressive symptoms and heavy episodic drinking; however, little is known regarding how associations between specific types of maltreatment (e.g., physical abuse, sexual abuse, care neglect, supervisory neglect) and depressive symptoms and heavy episodic drinking change across adolescence and into young adulthood. Similarly, there is lack of research that has examined how an accumulation of child maltreatment types relates to depressive symptoms and heavy episodic drinking across ages. Time-varying effect models—a statistical approach that allows researchers to pinpoint specific ages where the association between two variables is strongest—were used in the current study to address these gaps. Nationally representative data came from the first four waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health; N = 16,053; 49.4% female; 51.0% European American/White, 21.0% African American, 10.2% Biracial, 9.1% Hispanic; MAGE W1 = 17.00). Results suggested that certain types of maltreatment are more predictive of negative outcomes than others and that different types of maltreatment confer greater risk in different developmental periods. In addition, while victims of between one and three types of maltreatment had comparable prevalence of depressive symptoms and heavy episodic drinking across adolescence and young adulthood, victims of four types of maltreatment had a much higher prevalence of these outcomes indicating the extreme risk that accompanies an accumulation of maltreatment.

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  1. Unaffiliated: Yuen Wai Hung

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Benjamin L. Bayly

  2. Psychology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA

    Yuen Wai Hung & Daniel K. Cooper

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  1. Benjamin L. Bayly
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Contributions

B.B. conducted analyses, provided input on the study design, and drafted the majority of the manuscript; Y.H. conceived the study and drafted the method section of the manuscript; D.C. provided input into the study design and implications of the results. All authors read, edited, and approved the final manuscript.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse awards P50DA010075 and T32DA017629.

Data Sharing Declaration

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the Carolina Population Center, but restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for the current study, and so are not publicly available. However, data are available from the authors upon reasonable request and with permission of the Carolina Population Center.

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Correspondence to Benjamin L. Bayly.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

All participants provided written informed consent for participation in all aspects of Add Health in accordance with the University of North Carolina School of Public Health Institutional Review Board.

Research Involving Human Participants and/or Animals

This study was approved by the first author’s Institutional Review Board and the study was performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Bayly, B.L., Hung, Y.W. & Cooper, D.K. Age-Varying Associations between Child Maltreatment, Depressive Symptoms, and Frequent Heavy Episodic Drinking. J Youth Adolescence 51, 927–939 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-021-01522-z

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