Childhood mistreatment and adolescent and young adult depression

Jason Fletcher

Social Science & Medicine, 2009, vol. 68, issue 5, 799-806

Abstract: In this paper, I use a nationally representative sample of adolescents from the United States to examine the association between childhood mistreatment (sexual abuse and physical abuse) and depression during adolescence and young adulthood. Researchers have implicated childhood mistreatment as one of the most important predictors of depression. An alternative mechanism linking childhood mistreatment with adolescent and young adult depression is community and family disadvantage (or other factors) that affect both outcomes. Using data from the restricted version of the U.S. National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), this paper outlines several findings of the relationship between mistreatment and depression as well as the gender differences in depression. First, I find very limited evidence that controlling for common environmental factors at the school or neighborhood level explain the relationship between mistreatment and depression. Also, I show that controlling for common family factors decreases the predictive power of childhood mistreatment on depression. Results in this paper generally support previous research that shows the link between childhood mistreatment and depression is most important for females, even within families. Finally, results suggest that the effects of child mistreatment on depression may increase as individuals age.

Keywords: Childhood; mistreatment; Depression; Fixed; effects; Gender; USA (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(08)00652-7
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:68:y:2009:i:5:p:799-806

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
http://www.elsevier. ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian

More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().